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libraries 


ov.    B13.A.AL2A    eg               ^ND   OTHER 
«°°^CH   #   MAR-)OB«E   DAW         


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THOMAS   BAILEY   ALDRICH 


MARJORIE    DAW 


OTHER   PEOPLE 


Marjorie  Daw 

MiH8  Mehetabel's  Son 

A  Rivermouth  Romance 

Mademoiselle  Olympe  Zabriski 

F^re  Antoine 

etc. 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

1899 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1873, 

BY    T.    B.    ALDRICn, 

in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  WashingtoH. 


BXd^  9 


CONTENTS 


Pagb 
Makjorie  Daw 7 


A  RivEEMouTH  Romance 55 

Quite  So 108 

A  Young  Desperado *  134 

Miss  Mehetabel's  Son 148 

A  Struggle  for  Life 188 

Mademoiselle  Olympe  Zabriski.        .        .        .  209 

Pere  Antoine's  Date-Palm 233 


MARJORIE  DAW  AND  OTHER  PEOPLE. 


MARJORIE   DAW 


Dr.  Dillon  to  Edwaed  Delaney,  Esq.,  at  The 
Pines,  near  Rye,  N.  H. 

August  8, 187-. 

"ly  TY  DEAR  Sir  :  I  am  happy  to  assure  you  that 
^^^  your  anxiety  is  without  reason.  Flem- 
ming  will  be  confined  to  the  sofa  for  three 
or  four  weeks,  and  will  have  to  be  careful  at 
first  how  he  uses  his  leg.  A  fracture  of  this 
kind  is  always  a  tedious  affair.  Fortunately, 
the  bone  was  very  skilfully  set  by  the  surgeon 
who  chanced  to  be  in  the  drug-store  where 
Flemming  was  brought  after  his  fall,  and  I 
apprehend  no  permanent  inconvenience  from 
the  accident.  Flemming'  is  doing'  perfectly  well 
physically ;  but  I  must  confess  that  the  irritable 
and   morbid   state  of  mind  into  which  he  has 


MARJORIE    DAW. 


fallen  causes  me  a  great  deal  of  uneasiness. 
He  is  the  last  man  in  the  world  who  ought  to 
break  his  leg.  You  know  how  impetuous  our 
friend  is  ordinarily,  what  a  soul  of  restlessness 
and  energy,  never  content  unless  he  is  rushing 
at  some  object,  like  a  sportive  bull  at  a  red 
shawl ;  but  amiable  withal.  He  is  no  longer 
amiable.  His  temper  has  become  something 
frightful.  Miss  Fanny  Flemming  came  up  from 
Newport,  where  the  family  are  staying  for  the 
summer,  to  nurse  him ;  but  he  packed  her  off 
the  next  morning  m  tears.  He  has  a  complete 
set  of  Balzac's  works,  twenty-seven  volumes, 
piled  up  near  his  sofa,  to  throw  at  Watkins 
whenever  that  exemplary  serving-man  appears 
with  his  meals.  Yesterday  I  very  innocently 
brought  Flemming  a  small  basket  of  lemons. 
You  know  it  was  a  strip  of  lemon-peel  on  the 
curbstone  that  caused  our  friend's  mischance. 
Well,  he  no  sooner  set  his  eyes  upon  these  lem^ 
ons  than  he  fell  into  such  a  rage  as  I  cannot 
adequately  describe.  This  is  only  one  of  his 
moods,  and  the  least  distressing.  At  other 
times  he  sits  with  bowed  head  regarding  his 
splintered  limb,  silent,  sullen,  despairing.    When 


MARJORIE    DAW. 


this  fit  is  on  him  —  and  it  sometimes  lasts  all 
day  —  nothing  can  distract  his  melancholy.  He 
refuses  to  eat,  does  not  even  read  the  news- 
papers ;  books,  except  as  projectiles  for  Wat- 
kins,  have  no  charms  for  him.  His  state  is 
truly  pitiable. 

Now,  if  he  were  a  poor  man,  with  a  family 
depending  on  his  daily  labor,  this  irritability  and 
despondency  would  be  natural  enough.  But  in 
a  young  fellow  of  twenty-four,  with  plenty  of 
money  and  seemingly  not  a  care  in  the  world, 
the  thing  is  monstrous.  If  he  continues  to  give 
way  to  his  vagaries  in  this  manner,  he  will  end 
by  bringing  on  an  inflammation  of  the  fibula. 
It  was  the  fibula  he  broke.  I  am  at  my  wits' 
end  to  know  what  to  prescribe  for  him.  I  have 
anaesthetics  and  lotions,  to  make  people  sleep  and 
to  soothe  pain  ;  but  I  've  no  medicine  that  w^ill 
make  a  man  have  a  little  common-sense.  That 
is  beyond  my  skill,  but  maybe  it  is  not  beyond 
yours.  You  are  Flemming's  intimate  friend,  his 
fidus  Achates.  Write  to  him,  write  to  him  fre- 
quently, distract  his  mind,  cheer  him  up,  and 
prevent  him  from  becoming  a  confirmed  case 
of   melancholia.      Perhaps  he  has  some  impor- 


10  MARJORIE    DAW. 

tant  plans  disarranged  by  his  present  confine- 
ment. If  he  has  you  will  know,  and  will  know 
how  to  advise  him  judiciously.  I  trust  your 
father  finds  the  change  beneficial?  I  am,  my 
dear  sir,  with  great  respect,  etc. 


MARJORIE    DAW.  H 


II. 


Edward  Delaney  to  John  Flemming,  West  38th 
Street,  New  York. 

August  9,  — . 

My  dear  Jack  :  I  had  a  line  from  Dillon  this 
morning,  and  was  rejoiced  to  learn  that  your 
hurt  is  not  so  bad  as  reported.  Like  a  certain 
personage,  you  are  not  so  black  and  blue  as  you 
are  painted.  Dillon  will  put  you  on  your  pins 
again  in  two  or  three  weeks,  if  you  will  only 
have  patience  and  follow  his  counsels.  Did  you 
get  my  note  of  last  Wednesday  ?  I  was  greatly 
troubled  when  I  heard  of  the  accident. 

I  can  imagine  how  tranquil  and  saintly  you 
are  with  your  leg  in  a  trough  !  It  is  deuced 
awkward,  to  be  sure,  just  as  we  had  promised 
ourselves  a  glorious  month  together  at  the  sea- 
side ;  but  we  must  make  the  best  of  it.  It  is 
unfortunate,  too,  that  my  father's  health  renders 
it  impossible  for  me  to  leave  him.  I  think  he 
has  much  improved ;   tlie  sea  air  is  his  native 


12  MARJORIE    DAW. 

element ;  but  he  still  needs  my  arm  to  lean  upon 
in  his  walks,  and  requires  some  one  more  care- 
ful than  a  servant  to  look  after  him.  I  cannot 
come  to  you,  dear  Jack,  but  I  have  hours  of 
unemployed  time  on  hand,  and  I  will  write  you 
a  whole  post-office  full  of  letters  if  that  will 
divert  you.  Heaven  knows,  I  have  n't  any- 
thing  to  write  about.  It  is  n't  as  if  we  were 
living  at  one  of  the  beach  houses  ;  then  I  could 
do  you  some  character  studies,  and  fill  your 
imagination  with  groups  of  sea-goddesses,  with 
their  (or  somebody  else's)  raven  and  blond 
manes  hanging  down  their  shoulders.  You 
should  have  Aphrodite  in  morning  wa^apper,  in 
evening  costume,  and  in  her  prettiest  bathing 
suit.  But  we  are  far  from  all  that  here.  We 
have  rooms  in  a  farm-house,  on  a  cross-road, 
two  miles  from  the  hotels,  and  lead  the  quietest 
of  lives. 

I  wish  I  were  a  novelist.  This  old  house, 
with  its  sanded  floors  and  high  wainscots,  and 
its  narrow  windows  looking  out  upon  a  cluster 
of  pines  that  turn  themselves  into  geolian-harps 
every  time  the  wind  blows,  would  be  the  place  in 
which  to  write  a  summer  romance.     It  should  be 


MAIUORIE    DAW.  13 

a  story  with  the  odors  of  the  forest  and  the  breath 
of  the  sea  in  it.  It  should  be  a  novel  hke  one 
of  that  Russian  fellow's,  —  what  's  his  name  ? 
^-  Tourguenieff,  Turguenef,  Turgenif,  Toorgu- 
niff,  Turgenjew,  —  nobody  knows  how  to  spell 
him.  Yet  I  wonder  if  even  a  Liza  or  an  Alex- 
andra Paulovna  could  stir  the  heart  of  a  man 
who  has  constant  twinges  in  his  leg.  I  wonder 
if  one  of  our  own  Yankee  girls  of  the  best  type, 
haughty  and  spirituelle,  would  be  of  any  comfort 
to  you  in  your  present  deplorable  condition.  K 
I  thought  so,  I  would  hasten  down  to  the  Surf 
House  and  catch  one  for  you  ;  or,  better  still, 
I  would  find  you  one  over  the  way. 

Picture  to  yourself  a  large  white  house  just 
across  the  road,  nearly  opposite  our  cottage.  It 
is  not  a  house,  but  a  mansion,  built,  perhaps,  in 
the  colonial  period,  with  rambling  extensions,  and 
gambrel  roof,  and  a  wide  piazza  on  three  sides,  — 
a  self-  possessed,  high-bred  piece  of  architecture, 
with  its  nose  in  the  air.  It  stands  back  from  the 
road,  and  has  an  obsequious  retinue  of  fringed 
elms  and  oaks  and  weeping  willows.  Sometimes 
in  the  morning,  and  oftener  in  the  afternoon, 
when  the  sun  has  withdrawn  from  that  part  of 


14  MARJORIE    DAW. 

the  mansion,  a  young  woman  appears  on  the 
piazza  with  some  mysterious  Penelope  web  of 
embroidery  in  her  hand,  or  a  book.  There  is  a 
hammock  over  there,  —  of  pineapple  fibre,  it 
looks  from  here.  A  hammock  is  very  becoming 
when  one  is  eighteen,  and  has  golden  hair,  and 
dark  eyes,  and  an  emerald-colored  illusion  dress 
looped  up  after  the  fashion  of  a  Dresden  china 
shepherdess,  and  is  chaussee  like  a  belle  of  the 
time  of  Louis  Quatorze.  All  this  splendor  goes 
into  that  hammock,  and  sways  there  like  a  pond- 
lily  in  the  golden  afternoon.  The  window  of 
my  bedroom  looks  down  on  that  piazza,  —  and 
so  do  I. 

But  enough  of  this  nonsense,  which  ill  be- 
comes a  sedate  young  attorney  taking  his  vaca- 
tion with  an  invalid  father.  Drop  me  a  line, 
dear  Jack,  and  tell  me  how  you  really  are.  State 
your  case.  Write  me  a  long,  quiet  letter.  If 
you  are  violent  or  abusive,  I  '11  take  the  law  to 
you. 


MARJORIE    DAW.  15 


m. 


John  Flemming  to  Edward  Delaney. 

August  11,  — . 

Your  letter,  dear  Ned,  was  a  godsend.  Fancy 
what  a  fix  I  am  in,  —  I,  who  never  had  a  day's 
sickness  since  I  was  born.  My  left  leg  weighs 
three  tons.  It  is  embalmed  in  spices  and  smoth- 
ered in  layers  of  fine  linen,  like  a  mummy.  I 
can't  move.  I  have  n't  moved  for  five  thousand 
years.     I  'm  of  the  time  of  Pharaoh. 

I  lie  from  morning  till  night  on  a  lounge,  star- 
ing into  the  hot  street.  Everybody  is  out  of 
town  enjoying  himseK.  The  brown-stone-front 
houses  across  the  street  resemble  a  row  of  par- 
ticularly ugly  cofBns  set  up  on  end.  A  green 
mould  is  settling  on  the  names  of  the  deceased, 
carved  on  the  silver  door-plates.  Sardonic  spi- 
ders have  sewed  up  the  key-holes.  All  is  silence 
and  dust  and  desolation.  —  I  interrupt  this  a 
moment,  to  take  a  shy  at  Watkins  with  the 
second  volume  of  C^sar  Birotteau.     Missed  him ! 


16  MARJOKIE    DAW. 

I  think  I  could  bring  him  down  with  a  copy  of 
Sainte-Beuve  or  the  Dictionnaire  Universel,  if  I 
had  it.  These  small  Balzac  books  somehow 
don't  quite  fit  my  hand ;  but  I  shall  fetch  him 
yet.  I  've  an  idea  Watkins  is  tapping  the  old 
gentleman's  Chateau  Yquem.  Duplicate  key  of 
the  wine-cellar.  Hibernian  swarries  in  the  front 
basement.  Young  Cheops  up  stairs,  snug  in  his 
cerements.  Watkins  glides  into  my  chamber, 
with  that  colorless,  hypocritical  face  of  his 
drawn  out  long  like  an  accordion  ;  but  I  know 
he  grins  all  the  way  down  stairs,  and  is  glad  I 
have  broken  my  leg.  Was  not  my  evil  star  in 
the  very  zenith  when  I  ran  up  to  town  to  attend 
that  dinner  at  Delmonico's  ?  I  did  n't  come  up 
altogether  for  that.  It  was  partly  to  buy  Frank 
Livingstone's  roan  mare  Margot.  And  now  I 
shall  not  be  able  to  sit  in  the  saddle  these  two 
months.  I  '11  send  the  mare  down  to  you  at  The 
Pines,  —  is  that  the  name  of  the  place  ? 

Old  Dillon  fancies  that  I  have  something  on 
my  mind.  He  drives  me  wild  with  lemons. 
Lemons  for  a  mind  diseased !  Nonsense.  I 
am  only  as  restless  as  the  devil  under  this  con- 
finement, —  a  thing  I  'm  not  used  to.     Take  ^ 


MARJORIE    DaW.  17 

man  wlio  has  never  had  so  much  as  a  headache 
or  a  toothache  in  his  life,  strap  one  of  his  legs  in 
a  section  of  water-spout,  keep  him  in  a  room  in 
the  city  for  weeks,  with  the  hot  weather  turned 
on,  and  then  expect  him  to  smile  and  purr  and 
be  happy  !  It  is  preposterous.  I  can't  be  cheer- 
ful or  calm. 

Your  letter  is  the  first  consoling  thing  I  have 
had  since  my  disaster,  ten  days  ago.  It  really 
cheered  me  up  for  haK  an  hour.  Send  me  a 
screed,  Ned,  as  often  as  you  can,  if  you  love  me. 
Anything  will  do.  Write  me  more  about  that 
little  girl  in  the  hammock.  That  was  very 
pretty,  all  that  about  the  Dresden  china  shep- 
herdess and  the  pond-lily ;  the  imagery  a  little 
mixed,  perhaps,  but  very  pretty.  I  did  n't  sup- 
pose you  had  so  much  sentimental  furniture  in 
your  upper  story.  It  shows  how  one  may  be 
familiar  for  years  with  the  reception-room  of  his 
neighbor,  and  never  suspect  what  is  directly  un- 
der his  mansard.  I  supposed  your  loft  stuffed 
with  dry  legal  parchments,  mortgages  and  affi- 
davits ;  you  take  down  a  package  of  manuscript, 
and  lo  1  there  are  lyrics  and  sonnets  and  canzo- 
nettas.      You  really  have  a  graphic  descriptive 


18  MARJORIE    DAW. 

touch,  Edward  Delaney,  and  I  suspect  you  of 
anonymous  love-tales  in  the  magazines. 

I  shall  be  a  bear  until  I  hear  from  you  again. 
Tell  me  all  about  your  pretty  inconnue  across  the 
road.  What  is  her  name  ?  Who  is  she  ?  Who  's 
her  father  ?  Where  's  her  mother  ?  Who  's  her 
lover  ?  You  cannot  imagine  how  this  will  oc- 
cupy me.  The  more  trifling  the  better.  My 
imprisonment  has  weakened  me  intellectually 
to  such  a  degree  that  I  find  your  epistolary  gifts 
quite  considerable.  I  am  passing  into  my  second 
childhood.  In  a  week  or  two  I  shall  take  to 
India-rubber  rings  and  prongs  of  ccral.  A  silver 
cup,  with  an  appropriate  inscription,  would  be  a 
delicate  attention  on  your  part.  In  the  mean 
tiBae,  write ! 


MAKJORIE    DAW.  19 


TV. 

Edwaed  Delaney  to  John  Flemming. 

Augiist  12,  — . 

The  sick  pasha  shall  be  amused.  Bismillah  ! 
he  wills  it  so.  If  the  story-teller  becomes  prolix 
and  tedious, — the  bow-string  and  the  sack,  and 
two  Nubians  to  drop  him  into  the  Piscataqua ! 
But,  truly.  Jack,  I  have  a  hard  task.  There  is 
literally  nothing  here,  —  except  the  little  girl 
over  the  way.  She  is  swinging  in  the  hammock 
at  this  moment.  It  is  to  me  compensation  for 
many  of  the  ills  of  life  to  see  her  now  and  then 
put  out  a  small  kid  boot,  which  fits  like  a  glove, 
and  set  herself  going.  Who  is  she,  and  what  is 
her  name  ?  Her  name  is  Daw.  Only  daughter 
of  Mr.  Richard  W.  Daw,  ex-colonel  and  banker. 
Mother  dead.  One  brother  at  Harvard,  elder 
brother  killed  at  the  battle  of  Fair  Oaks,  nine 
years  ago.  Old,  rich  family,  the  Daws.  This  is 
the  homestead,  where  father  and  daughter  pass 


20  MARJORIE    DAW. 

eight  months  of  the  twelve ;  the  rest  of  the  year  in 
Baltimore  and  Washington.  The  New  England 
winter  too  many  for  the  old  gentleman.  The 
daughter  is  called  Marjorie,  —  Marjorie  Daw. 
Sounds  odd  at  first,  does  n't  it  ?  But  after  you 
say  it  over  to  yourself  half  a  dozen  times,  you 
like  it.  There 's  a  pleasing  quaintness  to  it, 
something  prim  and  violet-like.  Must  be  a  nice 
sort  of  girl  to  be  called  Marjorie  Daw. 

I  had  mine  host  of  The  Pines  in  the  witness- 
box  last  night,  and  drew  the  foregoing  testimony 
from  him.  He  has  charge  of  Mr.  Daw's  vege- 
table-garden, and  has  known  the  family  these 
thirty  years.  Of  course  I  shall  make  the  ac- 
quaintance of  my  neighbors  before  many  days. 
It  will  be  next  to  impossible  for  me  not  to  meet 
Mr.  Daw  or  Miss  Daw  in  some  of  my  walks. 
The  young  lady  has  a  favorite  path  to  the  sea- 
beach.  I  shall  intercept  her  some  morning,  and 
touch  my  hat  to  her.  Then  the  princess  will 
bend  her  fair  head  to  me  with  courteous  sur- 
prise not  unmixed  with  haughtiness.  Will  snub 
me,  in  fact.  All  this  for  thy  sake,  0  Pasha  of 
the  Snapt  Axle-tree !  .  .  .  .  How  oddly  things  fall 
out !     Ten  minutes  ago  I  was  called  down  to  the 


MARJORIE    DAW.  21 

parlor,  —  you  know  the  kind  of  parlors  in  f arm- 
liouses  on  the  coast,  a  sort  of  amphibious  parlor, 
with  sea-shells  on  the  mantel-piece  and  spruce 
branches  in  the  chimney-place,  —  where  I  found 
my  father  and  Mr.  Daw  doing  the  antique  polite 
to  each  other.  He  had  come  to  pay  his  respects 
to  his  new  neighbors.  Mr.  Daw  is  a  tall,  slim 
gentleman  of  about  fifty-five,  with  a  florid  face 
and  snow-white  mustache  and  side-whiskers. 
Looks  like  Mr.  Dombey,  or  as  Mr.  Dombey 
would  have  looked  if  he  had  served  a  few  years 
in  the  British  Army.  Mr.  Daw  was  a  colonel  in 
the  late  war,  commanding  the  regiment  in  which 
his  son  was  a  lieutenant.  Plucky  old  boy,  back- 
bone of  New  Hampshire  granite.  Before  taking 
his  leave,  the  colonel  delivered  himseK  of  an  in- 
vitation as  if  he  were  issuing  a  general  order. 
Miss  Daw  has  a  few  friends  coming,  at  4  p.  m., 
to  play  croquet  on  the  lawn  (parade-ground)  and 
have  tea  (cold  rations)  on  the  piazza.  Will  we 
honor  them  with  our  company  ?  (or  be  sent  to 
the  guard-house.)  My  father  declines  on  the' 
plea  of  ill-health.  My  father's  son  bows  with  as 
much  suavity  as  he  knows,  and  accepts. 

In  my  next  I  shall  have  something  to  tell  you. 


22  MARJORIE    DAW. 

I  shall  have  seen  the  little  beauty  face  to  face.  I 
have  a  presentiment,  Jack,  that  this  Daw  is  a 
rara  avis  !  Keep  up  your  spirits,  my  boy,  until 
I  write  you  another  letter,  —  and  send  me  along 
word  how  's  your  leg. 


MAEJOEIE    DAW. 


V. 


EDWA.RD   DeLANEY   TO   JOHN  FlEMMING. 

August  13,  — . 

The  party,  my  dear  Jack,  was  as  dreary  as 
possible.  A  lieutenant  of  the  navy,  the  rector 
of  the  Episcopal  church  at  Stillwater,  and  a  so- 
ciety swell  from  Nahant.  The  lieutenant  looked 
as  if  he  had  swallowed  a  couple  of  his  buttons, 
and  found  the  bullion  rather  indigestible ;  the 
rector  was  a  pensive  youth,  of  the  daffy downdilly 
sort;  and  the  swell  from  Nahant  was  a  very 
weak  tidal  wave  indeed.  The  women  were  much 
better,  as  they  always  are ;  the  two  Miss  Kings- 
b'urys  of  Philadelphia,  staying  at  the  Searsliell 
House,  two  bright  and  engaging  girls.  But 
Marjorie  Daw! 

The  company  broke  up  soon  after  tea,  and  I 
remained  to  smoke  a  cigar  with  the  colonel  on 
the  piazza.  It  was  like  seeing  a  picture  to  see 
Miss  Marjorie  hovering  around  the  old  soldier, 
and  doing  a  hundred  gi-acious  little  tilings  for 


24  MARJORIE    DAW. 

him.  She  brought  the  cigars  and  lighted  the 
tapers  with  her  own  delicate  fingers,  in  the  most 
enchanting  fashion.  As  we  sat  there,  she  came 
and  went  in  the  summer  twilight,  and  seemed, 
with  her  white  dress  and  pale  gold  hair,  like 
some  lovely  phantom  that  had  sprung  into  exist- 
ence out  of  the  smoke-wreaths.  If  she  had  melted 
into  air,  like  the  statue  of  Galatea  in  the  play, 
I  should  have  been  more  sorry  than  surprised. 

It  was  easy  to  perceive  that  the  old  colonel 
worsliipped  her,  and  she  him.  I  think  the  rela- 
tion between  an  elderly  father  and  a  daughter 
just  blooming  into  womanhood  the  most  beau- 
tiful possible.  There  is  in  it  a  subtile  sentiment 
that  cannot  exist  in  the  case  of  mother  and 
daughter,  or  that  of  son  and  mother.  But  this 
is  getting  into  deep  water. 

I  sat  with  the  Daws  until  half  past  ten,  and 
saw  the  moon  rise  on  the  sea.  The  ocean,  that 
had  stretched  motionless  and  black  against  the 
horizon,  was  changed  by  magic  into  a  broken 
field  of  glittering  ice,  interspersed  with  marvel- 
lous silvery  fjords.  In  the  far  distance  the  Isles 
of  Shoals  loomed  up  like  a  group  of  huge  bergs 
drifting  down  on  us.     The   Polar  Regions  in  a 


MARJORIE    DAW.  25 

June  thaw  !  It  was  exceedingly  fine.  What  did 
we  talk  about  ?  We  talked  about  the  weather  — 
and  you!  The  weather  has  been  disagreeable 
for  several  days  past,  —  and  so  have  you.  I 
glided  from  one  topic  to  the  other  very  natu- 
rally. I  told  my  friends  of  your  accident ;  how 
it  had  frustrated  all  our  sunmier  plans,  and  what 
our  plans  were.  I  played  quite  a  spirited  solo  on 
the  fibula.  Then  I  described  you ;  or,  rather,  I 
did  n't.  I  spoke  of  your  amiability,  of  your 
patience  under  this  severe  affliction;  of  your 
touching  gratitude  when  Dillon  brings  you  lit- 
tle presents  of  fruit ;  of  your  tenderness  to  your 
sister  Fanny,  whom  you  would  not  allow  to 
stay  in  town  to  nurse  you,  and  how  you  hero- 
ically sent  her  back  to  Newport,  preferring  to 
remain  alone  with  Mary,  the  cook,  and  your 
man  Watkins,  to  whom,  by  the  way,  you  were 
devotedly  attached.  If  you  had  been  there. 
Jack,  you  would  n't  have  known  yourself.  I 
should  have  excelled  as  a  criminal  lawyer,  if 
I  had  not  turned  my  attention  to  a  different 
branch  of  jurisprudence. 

Miss  Marjorie  asked  all  manner  of  leading  ques- 
tions concerning  you.     It  did  not  occur  to  me 

2 


26  MARJORIE    DAW. 

then,  but  it  struck  me  forcibly  afterwards,  that 
she  evinced  a  singular  interest  in  the  conversa- 
tion. When  I  got  back  to  my  room,  I  recalled 
how  eagerly  she  leaned  forward,  with  her  full, 
snowy  throat  in  strong  moonlight,  listening  to 
what  I  said.  Positively,  I  think  I  made  her  like 
you! 
^  Miss  Daw  is  a  girl  whom  you  would  like  im- 
mensely, I  can  tell  you  that.  A  beauty  without 
affectation,  a  high  and  tender  nature, —  if  one 
can  read  the  soul  in  the  face.  And  the  old  colo- 
nel is  a  noble  character,  too.     ) 

I  am  glad  the  Daws  are  such  pleasant  people. 
The  Pines  is  an  isolated  spot,  and  my  resources 
are  few.  I  fear  I  should  have  found  life  here 
somewhat  monotonous  before  long,  with  no  other 
society  than  that  of  my  excellent  sire.  It  is  true, 
I  might  have  made  a  target  of  the  defenceless 
invalid ;  but  I  have  n't  a  taste  for  artillery,  moi. 


MASJOBIE   DAW.  27 


VI. 


John  Flemming  to  Edward  Delaney. 

August  17,—.      /xA 

For  a  man  who  has  n't  a  taste  for  artillery,  if 
occurs  to  me,  my  friend,  you  are  keeping  up  a 
pretty  lively  fire  on  my  inner  works.  But  go  on. 
Cynicism  is  a  small  brass  field-piece  that  eventu- 
ally bursts  and  kills  the  artilleryman. 

You  may  abuse  me  as  much  as  you  like,  and 
I  '11  not  complain ;  for  I  don't  know  what  I 
should  do  without  your  letters.  They  are  curing 
me.  I  have  n't  hurled  anything  at  Watkins  since 
last  Sunday,  partly  because  I  have  grown  more 
amiable  under  your  teaching,  and  partly  because 
Watkins  captured  my  ammunition  one  night,  and 
carried  it  off  to  the  library.  He  is  rapidly  losing 
the  habit  he  had  acquired  of  dodging  whenever 
I  rub  my  ear,  or  make  any  slight  motion  with 
my  right  arm.  He  is  still  suggestive  of  the  wine- 
cellar,  however.     You  may  break,  you  may  shat- 


28  MARJORIE    DAW. 

te-r  "Watkins,  if  you  will,  but  the  scent  of  the 
Roederer  will  hang  round  him  still. 

Ned,  that  Miss  Daw  must  be  a  charming  per- 
son. I  should  certainly  like  her.  I  like  her 
already.  When  you  spoke  in  your  first  letter 
of  seeing  a  young  girl  swinging  in  a  hammock 
under  your  chamber  window,  I  was  somehow 
strangely  drawn  to  her.  I  cannot  account  for  it 
in  the  least.  What  you  have  subsequently  writ- 
ten of  Miss  Daw  has  strengthened  the  impres- 
sion. You  seem  to  be  describing  a  woman  I 
have  known  in  some  previous  state  of  existence, 
or  dreamed  of  in  this.  Upon  my  word,  if  you 
were  to  send  me  her  photograph,  I  believe  I 
should  recognize  her  at  a  glance.  Her  manner, 
that  listening  attitude,  her  traits  of  character,  as 
you  indicate  them,  the  light  hair  and  the  dark 
eyes, — they  are  all  familiar  things  to  me.  Asked 
a  lot  of  questions,  did  she  ?  Curious  about  me  ? 
That  is  strange. 

You  would  laugh  in  your  sleeve,  you  wretched 
old  cynic,  if  you  knew  how  I  lie  awake  nights, 
with  my  gas  turned  down  to  a  star,  thinking  of 
The  Pines  and  the  house  across  the  road.  How 
cool  it  must  be  down  there  !     I  long  for  the  salt 


MARJORIE    DAW.  29 

smell  in  the  air.  I  picture  the  colonel  smoking 
his  cheroot  on  the  piazza.  I  send  you  and  Miss 
Daw  off  on  afternoon  rambles  along  the  beach 
Sometimes  I  let  you  stroll  with  her  under  the 
elms  in  the  moonlight,  for  you  are  great  friends 
by  this  time,  I  take  it,  and  see  each  other  every 
day.  I  know  your  ways  and  your  manners  1 
Then  I  fall  into  a  truculent  mood,  and  would 
like  to  destroy  somebody.  Have  you  noticed 
anything  in  the  shape  of  a  lover  hanging  around 
the  colonial  Lares  and  Penates  ?  Does  that  lieu- 
tenant of  the  horse-marines  or  that  young  Still- 
water parson  visit  the  house  much  ?  Not  that  I 
am  pining  for  news  of  them,  but  any  gossip  of 
the  kind  would  be  in  order.  I  wonder,  Ned,  you 
don't  fall  in  love  with  Miss  Daw.  I  am  ripe  to 
do  it  myseK.  Speaking  of  photographs,  could  n't 
you  manage  to  slip  one  of  her  carte s-de-visite 
from  her  album,  —  she  must  have  an  album,  you 
know,  —  and  send  it  to  me  ?  I  will  return  it 
before  it  could  be  missed.  That 's  a  good  fellow ! 
Did  the  mare  arrive  safe  and  sound  ?  It  will  be 
a  capital  animal  this  autumn  for  Central  Park. 

0  —  my  leg  ?     I  forgot  about  my  leg.     It 's 
better. 


30  MARJOEIE   DAW. 


vn. 

Edward  Delaney  to  John  Flemming. 

August  20,  — . 

You  are  correct  in  your  surmises.  I  am  on 
the  most  friendly  terms  with  our  neighbors.  The 
colonel  and  my  father  smoke  their  afternoon  ci- 
gar together  in  our  sitting-room  or  on  the  piazza 
opposite,  and  I  pass  an  hour  or  two  of  the  day  or 
the  evening  with  the  daughter.  I  am  more  and 
more  struck  by  the  beauty,  modesty,  and  intelli- 
gence of  Miss  Daw. 

You  ask  me  why  I  do  not  fall  in  love  with  her. 
I  will  be  frank,  Jack  :  I  have  thought  of  that. 
She  is  young,  rich,  accomplished,  uniting  in  her- 
self more  attractions,  mental  and  personal,  than 
I  can  recall  in  any  girl  of  my  acquaintance ;  but 
she  lacks  the  something  that  would  be  necessary 
to  inspire  in  me  that  kind  of  interest.  Possess- 
ing this  unknown  quantity,  a  woman  neither 
beautiful  nor  wealthy  nor  very  young  could  bring 
me  to  her  feet.     But  not  Miss  Daw.     If  we  were 


MARJOTIIE    DAW.  31 

shipwrecked  together  on  an  uninhabited  island, 

—  let  me  suggest  a  tropical  island,  for  it  costs  no 
more  to  be  picturesque,  —  I  would  build  her  a 
bamboo  hut,  I  would  fetch  her  bread-fruit  and 
cocoanuts,  I  would  fry  yams  for  her,  I  would 
lure  the  ingenuous  turtle  and  make  her  nour- 
ishing soups,  but  I  would  n't  make  love  to  her, 

—  not  under  eighteen  months.  I  would  like  to 
have  her  for  a  sister,  that  I  might  shield  her  and 
counsel  her,  and  spend  haK  my  income  on  thread- 
laces  and  camel's-hair  shawls.  (We  are  off  the 
island  now.)  If  such  were  not  my  feeling,  there 
would  still  be  an  obstacle  to  my  loving  Miss 
Daw.  A  greater  misfortune  could  scarcely  be- 
fall me  than  to  love  her.  Flemming,  I  am  about 
to  make  a  revelation  that  will  astonish  you.  I 
may  be  all  wrong  in  my  premises  and  consequently 
in  my  conclusions  ;  but  you  shall  judge. 

That  night  when  I  returned  to  my  room  after 
the  croquet  party  at  the  Daws',  and  was  think- 
ing over  the  trivial  events  of  the  evening,  I  was 
suddenly  impressed  by  the  air  of  eager  attention 
with  which  Miss  Daw  had  followed  my  account 
of  your  accident.  I  think  I  mentioned  this  to 
you.     Well,  the  next  morning,  as  I  went  to  mail 


MARJORIE    DAW. 


my  letter,  I  overtook  Miss  Daw  on  the  road  tv> 
Rye,  where  the  post-office  is,  and  accompanied 
her  thither  and  back,  an  hour's  walk.  The  con- 
versation again  turned  on  you,  and  again  I  re- 
marked that  inexplicable  look  of  interest  which 
had  lighted  up  her  face  the  previous  evening. 
Since  then,  I  have  seen  Miss  Daw  perhaps  ten 
times,  perhaps  oftener,  and  on  each  occasion  I 
found  that  when  I  was  not  speaking  of  you,  or 
your  sister,  or  some  person  or  place  associated 
with  you,  I  was  not  holding  her  attention.  She 
would  be  absent-minded,  her  eyes  would  wander 
away  from  me  to  the  sea,  or  to  some  distant 
object  in  the  landscape ;  her  fingers  would  play 
with  the  leaves  of  a  book  in  a  way  that  convinced 
me  she  was  not  listening.  At  these  moments 
if  I  abruptly  changed  the  theme,  —  I  did  it  sev- 
eral times  as  an  experiment,  —  and  dropped  some 
remark  about  my  friend  Flemming,  then  the 
sombre  blue  eyes  would  come  back  to  me  in- 
stantly. 

Now,  is  not  this  the  oddest  thing  in  the  world  ? 
No,  not  the  oddest.  The  effect  which  you  tell 
me  was  produced  on  you  by  my  casual  mention 
of  an  unknown  girl  swinging  in  a  hammock  is 


MARJORIE    DAW.  33 

certainly  as  strange.  You  can  conjecture  how 
that  passage  in  your  letter  of  Friday  startled  me. 
Is  it  possible,  then,  that  two  people  who  have 
never  met,  and  who  are  hundreds  of  miles  apart, 
can  exert  a  magnetic  influence  on  each  other? 
I  have  read  of  such  psychological  phenomena, 
but  never  credited  them.  I  leave  the  solution 
of  the  problem  to  you.  As  for  myself,  all  other 
things  being  favorable,  it  would  be  impossible  for 
me  to  fall  in  love  with  a  woman  who  listens  to 
me  only  when  I  am  talking  of  my  friend! 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  one  is  paying  marked 
attention  to  my  fair  neighbor.  The  lieutenant 
of  the  navy  —  he  is  stationed  at  Rivermouth  — 
sometimes  drops  in  of  an  evening,  and  some- 
times the  rector  from  Stillwater ;  the  lieutenant 
the  oftener.  He  was  there  last  night.  I  would 
not  be  surprised  if  he  had  an  eye  to  the  heiress ; 
but  he  is  not  formidable.  Mistress  Daw  carries 
a  neat  little  spear  of  irony,  and  the  honest  lieu- 
tenant seems  to  have  a  particular  facihty  for 
impaling  himself  on  the  point  of  it.  He  is  not 
dangerous,  I  should  say ;  though  I  have  known 
a  woman  to  satirize  a  man  for  years,  and  marry 
him  after  all.     Decidedly,  the  lowly  rector  is  not 

2*  0 


34  MAKJORIE    DAW. 

dangerous ;  yet,  again,  who  has  not  seen  Cloth 
of  Frieze  victorious  in  the  lists  where  Cloth  of 
Gold  went  down  ? 

As  to  the  photograph.  There  is  an  exquisite 
ivorytype  of  Marjorie,  in  passe-partout,  on  the 
drawing-room  mantel-piece.  It  would  be  missed 
at  once,  if  taken.  I  would  do  anything  reason- 
able for  you.  Jack ;  but  I  've  no  burning  desire 
to  be  hauled  up  before  the  local  justice  of  the 
peace,  on  a  charge  of  petty  larceny. 

P.  S.  —  Enclosed  is  a  spray  of  mignonette, 
which  I  advise  you  to  treat  tenderly.  Yes,  we 
talked  of  you  again  last  night,  as  usual.  It  is 
becoming  a  little  dreary  for  me. 


MA.RJORIE    DAW.  35 


vm. 

Edward  Delaney  to  John  Flemming. 

August  22,  — . 

Your  letter  in  reply  to  my  last  has  occupied 
my  thoughts  all  the  morning.  I  do  not  know 
what  to  think.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you 
are  seriously  half  in  love  with  a  woman  whom 
you  have  never  seen,  —  with  a  shadow,  a  chi- 
mera ?  for  what  else  can  Miss  Daw  be  to  you  ? 
I  do  not  understand  it  at  all.  I  understand 
neither  you  nor  her.  You  are  a  couple  of  ethe- 
real beings  moving  in  finer  air  than  I  can  breathe 
with  my  commonplace  lungs.  Such  delicacy  of 
sentiment  is  something  I  admire  without  com- 
prehending. I  am  bewildered.  I  am  of  the 
earth  earthy,  and  I  find  myself  in  the  incongru- 
ous position  of  having  to  do  wdth  mere  souls, 
with  natures  so  finely  tempered  that  I  run  some 
risk  of  shattering  them  in  my  awkw^ardness.  I 
am  as  Caliban  among  the  spirits ! 

Reflecting  on  your  letter,  I  am  not  sure  it  is 


36  MARJORIE    DAW. 

wise  in  me  to  continue  this  correspondence.    But 
no,  Jack;  I  do  wrong  to  doubt  the  good  sense 
that  forms  the  basis  of  your  character.     You  are 
deeply  interested  in  Miss  Daw  ;  you  feel  that  she 
is  a  person  whom  you  may  perhaps  greatly  ad-^ 
mire  when  you  know  her :  at  the  same  time  you 
bear  in  mind  that  the  chances  are  ten  to  five 
that,  when  you  do  come  to  know  her,  she  will 
fall  far  short  of  your  ideal,  and  you  will  not  care 
for  her  in  the  least.     Look  at  it  in  tliis  sensible 
light,  and  I  will  hold  back  nothing  from  you. 
Yesterday   afternoon   my  father  and   myself 
rode  over  to  Ki vermouth  with  the  Daws.      A 
heavy  rain  in  the  morning  had  cooled  the  at- 
mosphere and  laid  the  dust.     To  Rivermouth  is 
a  drive  of  eight  miles,  along  a  winding  road 
lined  all  the  way  with  wild  barberry-bushes.     I 
never  saw  anything  more  brilliant  than  these 
bushes,  the  green  of  the  foliage  and  the  pink  of 
the  coral  berries  intensified  by  the  rain.     The 
colonel  drove,  with  my  father  in  front.  Miss  Daw 
and  I  on  the  back  seat.     I  resolved  that  for  the 
first  five  miles  your  name  should  not  pass  my 
lips.     I  was  amused  by  the  artful  attempts  she 
made,  at  the  start,  to  break  through  my  reti- 


MARJORIE    DAW.  37 

cence.  Then  a  silence  fell  upon  her ;  and  then 
she  became  suddenly  gay.  That  keenness  which 
I  enjoyed  so  much  when  it  was  exercised  on 
the  lieutenant  was  not  so  satisfactory  directed 
against  myself.  Miss  Daw  has  great  sweetness 
of  disposition,  but  she  can  be  disagreeable.  She 
is  like  the  young  lady  in  the  rhyme,  with  the 
curl  on  her  forehead, 

"  When  she  is  good, 
She  is  very,  very  good. 
And  when  she  is  had,  she  is  horrid !  " 

I  kept  to  my  resolution,  however ;  but  on  the 
return  home  I  relented,  and  talked  of  your  mare  ! 
Miss  Daw  is  going  to  try  a  side-saddle  on  Margot 
some  morning.  The  animal  is  a  trifle  too  light 
for  my  weight.  By  the  by,  I  nearly  forgot  to 
say  Miss  Daw  sat  for  a  picture  yesterday  to  a 
Rivermouth  artist.  If  the  negative  turns  out 
well,  I  am  to  have  a  copy.  So  our  ends  will  be 
accomplished  without  crime.  I  wish,  though,  I 
could  send  you  the  ivorytype  in  the  drawing- 
room  ;  it  is  cleverly  colored,  and  would  give  you 
an  idea  of  her  hair  and  eyes,  which  of  course 
the  other  will  not. 

No,  Jack,  the  spray  of  mignonette   did   not 


38  MAKJOEIE    DAW. 

come  from  me.  A  man  of  twenty-eight  does  n't 
enclose  flowers  in  his  letters  —  to  another  man. 
But  don't  attach  too  much  significance  to  the 
circumstance.  She  gives  sprays  of  mignonette 
to  the  rector,  sprays  to  the  lieutenant.  She  has 
even  given  a  rose  from  her  bosom  to  your  slave. 
It  is  her  jocund  nature  to  scatter  flowers,  like 
Spring. 

If  my  letters  sometimes  read  disjointedly,  you 
must  understand  that  I  never  finish  one  at  a 
sitting,  but  write  at  intervals,  when  the  mood  is 
on  me. 

The  mood  is  not  on  me  now. 


afARJOEIE    DAW.  39 


IX. 


Edward  Delaney  to  John  Plemming. 

August  23,  — 

I  HAVE  just  returned  from  the  strangest  in- 
terview with  Marjorie.  She  has  all  but  con- 
fessed to  me  her  interest  in  you.  But  with 
what  modesty  and  dignity !  Her  words  elude 
my  pen  as  I  attempt  to  put  them  on  paper ;  and, 
indeed,  it  was  not  so  much  what  she  said  as  her 
manner ;  and  that  I  cannot  reproduce.  Perhaps 
it  was  of  a  piece  with  the  strangeness  of  this 
whole  business,  that  she  should  tacitly  acknowl- 
edge to  a  third  party  the  love  she  feels  for  a  man 
she  has  never  beheld !  But  I  have  lost,  through 
your  aid,  the  faculty  of  being  surprised.  I  ac- 
cept things  as  people  do  in  dreams.  Now  that 
I  am  again  in  my  room,  it  all  appears  like  an 
illusion,  —  the  black  masses  of  Kembrandtish 
shadow  under  the  trees,  the  fire-flies  whirling 
in  Pyrrhic  dances  among  the  shrubbery,  the  sea 
over  there,  Marjorie  sitting  on  the  hammock! 


40  MARJORIE    DAW. 

It  is  past  midnight,  and  I  am  too  sleepy  to 
write  more. 

Thursday  Morning. 

My  father  has  suddenly  taken  it  into  his  head 
to  spend  a  few  days  at  the  Shoals.  In  the  mean 
while  you  will  not  hear  from  me.  I  see  Marjorie 
walking  in  the  garden  with  the  colonel.  I  wish 
I  could  speak  to  her  alone,  but  shall  probably 
not  have  an  opportunity  before  we  leave. 


MARJORIE   DAW.  41 


Edwakd  Delaney  to  John  Flemming. 

August  28,  —. 

You  were  passing  into  your  second  childhood, 
were  you  ?  Your  intellect  was  so  reduced  that 
my  epistolary  gifts  seemed  quite  considerable  to 
you,  did  they  ?  I  rise  superior  to  the  sarcasm 
in  your  favor  of  the  11th  instant,  when  I  notice 
that  five  days'  silence  on  my  part  is  sufficient  to 
throw  you  into  the  depths  of  despondency. 

We  returned  only  this  morning  from  Apple- 
dore,  that  enchanted  island,  —  at  four  dollars 
per  day.  I  find  on  my  desk  three  letters  from 
you!  Evidently  there  is  no  lingering  doubt  in 
your  mind  as  to  the  pleasure  I  derive  from  your 
correspondence.  These  letters  are  undated,  but 
in  what  I  take  to  be  the  latest  are  two  passages 
that  require  my  consideration.  You  will  pardon 
my  candor,  dear  Flemming,  but  the  conviction 
forces  itself  upon  me  that  as  your  leg  grows 
stronger  your  head  becomes  weaker.     You  ask 


42  MARJORIE    DAW. 

my  advice  on  a  certain  point.  I  will  give  it.  In 
my  opinion  you  could  do  nothing  more  unwise 
than  to  address  a  note  to  Miss  Daw,  thanking 
her  for  the  flower.  It  would,  I  am  sure,  offend 
her  delicacy  beyond  pardon.  She  knows  you  only 
through  me;  you  are  to  her  an  abstraction,  a 
figure  in  a  dream,  —  a  dream  from  which  the 
faintest  shock  would  awaken  her.  Of  course,  if 
you  enclose  a  note  to  me  and  insist  on  its  deliv- 
ery, I  shall  deliver  it ;  but  I  advise  you  not  to 
do  so. 

You  say  you  are  able,  with  the  aid  of  a  cane, 
to  walk  about  your  chamber,  and  that  you  pur- 
pose to  come  to  The  Pines  the  instant  Dillon 
thinks  you  strong  enough  to  stand  the  journey. 
Again  I  advise  you  not  to.  Do  you  not  see  that, 
every  hour  you  remain  away,  Marjorie's  glamour 
deepens,  and  your  influence  over  her  increases  ? 
You  will  ruin  everything  by  precipitancy.  Wait 
until  you  are  entirely  recovered ;  in  any  case,  do 
not  come  without  giving  me  warning.  I  fear  the 
effect  of  your  abrupt  advent  here  —  under  the 
circumstances. 

Miss  Daw  was  evidently  glad  to  see  us  back 
again,  and  gave  me  both  hands  in  the  frankest 


MARJORIE    DAW.  43 

way.  She  stopped  at  the  door  a  moment,  this 
afternoon,  in  the  carriage;  she  had  been  over 
to  Rivermouth  for  her  pictures.  Unluckily  the 
photographer  had  spilt  some  acid  on  the  plate, 
and  she  was  obliged  to  give  him  another  sitting. 
I  have  an  intuition  that  something  is  troubling 
Marjorie.  She  had  an  abstracted  air  not  usual 
with  her.  However,  it  may  be  only  my  fancy. 
....  I  end  this,  leaving  several  things  unsaid, 
to  accompany  my  father  on  one  of  those  long 
walks  which  are  now  his  chief  medicine,  —  and 
mine  I 


44  MABJORIE   DAW. 


XI. 


Edward  Delaney  to  John  Flemming. 

August  29,  — . 

I  WRITE  in  great  haste  to  tell  you  what  has 
taken  place  here  since  my  letter  of  last  night. 
I  am  in  the  utmost  perplexity.  Only  one  thing 
is  plain,  —  you  nmst  not  dream  of  coming  to 
The  Pines.  Marjorie  has  told  her  father  every- 
thing !  I  saw  her  for  a  few  minutes,  an  hour 
ago,  in  the  garden  ;  and,  as  near  as  I  could 
gather  from  her  confused  statement,  the  facts 
are  these  :  Lieutenant  Bradly  —  that 's  the  naval 
officer  stationed  at  Rivermouth  —  has  been  pay- 
ing court  to  Miss  Daw  for  some  time  past,  but 
not  so  much  to  her  liking  as  to  that  of  the  col- 
onel, who  it  seems  is  an  old  friend  of  the  young 
gentleman's  father.  Yesterday  (I  knew  she  was 
in  some  trouble  when  she  drove  up  to  our  gate) 
the  colonel  spoke  to  Marjorie  of  Bradly,  —  urged 
his  suit,  I  infer.  Marjorie  expressed  her  dislike 
for  the  lieutenant  with  characteristic  frankness, 


MARJORIE    DAW.  45 

and  finally  confessed  to  her  father  —  well,  I 
really  do  not  know  what  she  confessed.  It  must 
have  been  the  vaguest  of  confessions,  and  must 
have  sufficiently  puzzled .  the  colonel.  At  any 
rate,  it  exasperated  him.  I  suppose  I  am  im- 
plicated in  the  matter,  and  that  the  colonel  feels 
bitterly  towards  me.  I  do  not  see  why :  I  have 
carried  no  messages  between  you  and  Miss  Daw ; 
I  have  behaved  with  the  greatest  discretion.  I 
can  find  no  flaw  anywhere  in  my  proceeding.  I 
do  not  see,  that  anybody  has  done  anything,  — 
except  the  colonel  himself. 

It  is  probable,  nevertheless,  that  the  friendly 
relations  between  the  two  houses  wiU  be  broken 
off.  "  A  plague  o'  both  your  houses,"  say  you. 
I  will  keep  you  informed,  as  well  as  I  can,  of 
what  occurs  over  the  way.  We  shall  remain 
here  until  the  second  week  in  September.  Stay 
where  you  are,  or,  at  all  events,  do  not  dream  of 

joining  me Colonel  Daw  is  sitting  on 

the  piazza  looking  rather  wicked.  I  have  not 
seen  Marjorie  since  I  parted  with  her  in  the 
garden. 


MARJOEIE    DAW. 


xn. 

Edward  Delaney  to  Thomas  Dillon,  M.  D.,  Madi- 
son Square,  New  York. 

August  30,  — . 

My  dear  Doctor  :  If  you  have  any  influence 
over  Flemming,  I  beg  of  you  to  exert  it  to  pre- 
vent his  coming  to  this  place  at  present.  There 
are  circumstances,  which  I  will  explain  to  you 
before  long,  that  make  it  of  the  first  importance 
that  he  should  not  come  into  this  neighborhood. 
His  appearance  here,  I  speak  advisedly,  would  be 
disastrous  to  him.  In  urging  him  to  remain  in 
New  York,  or  to  go  to  some  inland  resort,  you 
will  be  doing  him  and  me  a  real  service.  Of 
course  you  will  not  mention  my  name  in  this 
connection.  You  know  me  well  enough,  my 
dear  doctor,  to  be  assured  that,  in  begging  your 
secret  co-operation,  I  have  reasons  that  will  meet 
your  entire  approval  when  they .  are  made  plain 
to  you.  We  shall  return  to  town  on  the  15th 
of  next  month,  and  my  first  duty  will  be  to 


MAEJORIE    DAW.  47 

present  myself  at  your  hospitable  door  and  sat- 
isfy your  curiosity,  if  I  have  excited  it.  My 
father,  I  am  glad  to  state,  has  so  greatly  im- 
proved that  he  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as 
an  invalid.    With  great  esteem,  I  am,  etc.,  etc. 


48  MARJORIE    DAW. 


xin. 

Edward  Delaney  to  John  Plemming. 

August  31,  — . 

Your  letter,  announcing  your  mad  determina- 
tion to  come  here,  has  just  reached  me.  I  be- 
seech you  to  reflect  a  moment.  The  step  would 
be  fatal  to  your  interests  and  hers.  You  would 
furnish  just  cause  for  irritation  to  R.  W.  D. ; 
and,  though  he  loves  Marjorie  tenderly,  he  is 
capable  of  going  to  any  lengths  if  opposed.  You 
would  not  like,  I  am  convinced,  to  be  the  means 
of  causing  him  to  treat  her  with  severity.  That 
would  be  the  result  of  your  presence  at  The  Pines 
at  tliis  juncture.  I  am  annoyed  to  be  obliged  to 
point  out  these  things  to  you.  We  are  on  very 
delicate  ground.  Jack ;  the  situation  is  critical, 
and  the  slightest  mistake  in  a  move  would  cost 
us  the  game.  If  you  consider  it  worth  the 
winning,  be  patient.  Trust  a  little  to  my  sa- 
gacity. Wait  and  see  what  happens.  More- 
over, I  understand  from  Dillon  that  you  are  in 


MARJORIE    DAW.  45 

no  condition  to  take  so  long  a  journey.  He 
thinks  the  air  of  the  coast  would  be  the  worst 
thing  possible  for  you ;  that  you  ought  to  go 
inland,  if  anywhere.  Be  advised  by  me.  Be 
advised  by  Dillon. 


50  MARJORIE    DAW. 


XIY. 

Telegrams. 

September  1,  ~. 
1.  —  To  Edward  Delaney. 

Letter  received.     Dillon  be  hanged.     I  think 

I  ought  to  be  on  the  ground. 

J.  F. 

2.  —  To  John  Flemming. 
Stay  where  you  are.      You  would  only  com- 
plicate matters.      Do  not  move  until  you  hear 

from  me. 

E.  D. 

3.  —  To  Edward  Delaney. 
My  being  at  The  Pines  could  be  kept  secret. 

I  must  see  her. 

J.  F. 

4.  —  To  John  Flemming. 
Do  not  think  of  it.      It  would  be  useless. 
R.  W.  D.  has  locked  M.  in  her  room.      You 
would  not  be  able  to  effect  an  interview. 

E.  D. 


MARJOEIE    DAW.  51 

5.  —  To  Edward  Delaney. 
Locked  her  in  her  room.     Good  God.     That 
settles  the  question.    I  shall  leave  by  the  twelve- 
fifteen  express. 

J.  F. 


52  MABJOBIE    DAW. 


XY. 


The  Arrival. 


On  the  second  of  September,  187-,  as  the  down 
express  due  at  3.40  left  the  station  at  Hampton, 
a  young  man,  leaning  on  the  shoulder  of  a  ser- 
vant, whom  he  addressed  as  Watkins,  stepped 
from  the  platform  into  a  hack,  and  requested  to 
be  driven  to  "  The  Pines."  On  arriving  at  the 
gate  of  a  modest  farm-house,  a  few  miles  from 
the  station,  the  young  man  descended  with  diffi- 
culty from  the  carriage,  and,  casting  a  hasty 
glance  across  the  road,  seemed  much  hnpressed 
by  some  peculiarity  in  the  landscape.  Again 
leaning  on  the  shoulder  of  the  person  Watkins, 
he  walked  to  the  door  of  the  farm-house  and  in- 
quired for  Mr.  Edward  Delaney.  He  was  in- 
formed by  the  aged  man  who  answered  his  knock, 
that  Mr.  Edward  Delaney  had  gone  to  Boston  the 
day  before,  but  that  Mr.  Jonas  Delaney  was  with- 
in.   This  information  did  not  appear  satisfactory 


MARJORIE    DAW.  53 

to  the  stranger,  who  inquired  if  Mr.  Edward  De- 
laney  had  left  any  message  for  Mr.  John  Flem- 
ming.  There  was  a  letter  for  Mr.  Flemming,  if 
he  were  that  person.  After  a  brief  absence  the 
aged  man  reappeared  with  a  Letter. 


54  MAEJOEIE   DAW. 


XYI. 

Edward  Delaney  to  John  Flemming. 

September  1,  — . 

I  am  horror-stricken  at  what  I  have  done ! 
When  I  began  this  correspondence  I  had  no  other 
purpose  than  to  reheve  the  tedium  of  your  sick- 
chamber.  Dillon  told  me  to  cheer  you  up.  I 
tried  to.  I  thought  you  entered  into  the  spirit  of 
the  thing.  I  had  no  idea,  until  within  a  few  days, 
that  you  were  taking  matters  au  serieux. 

What  can  I  say  ?  I  am  in  sackcloth  and  ashes. 
I  am  a  pariah,  a  dog  of  an  outcast.  I  tried  to 
make  a  little  romance  to  interest  you,  something 
soothing  and  idyllic,  and,  by  Jove !  I  have  done  it 
only  too  well !  My  father  does  n't  know  a  word 
of  this,  so  don't  jar  the  old  gentleman  any  more 
than  you  can  help.  I  fly  from  the  wrath  to  come 
—  when  you  arrive !  For  0,  dear  Jack,  there 
is  n't  any  colonial  mansion  on  the  other  side  of 
the  road,  there  is  n't  any  piazza,  there  is  n't  any 
hammock,  —  there  is  n't  any  Marjorie  Daw ! ! 


A  RIVERMOUTH  ROMANCE. 


\  T  five  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  tenth 
•*^  of  July,  1860,  the  front  door  of  a  certain 
house  on  Anchor  Street,  in  the  ancient  seaport 
town  of  Rivermouth,  might  have  been  observed 
to  open  with  great  caution.  This  door,  as  the 
least  imaginative  reader  may  easily  conjecture, 
did  not  open  itself.  It  was  opened  by  Miss  Mar- 
garet Callaghan,  who  immediately  closed  it  softly 
behind  her,  paused  for  a  few  seconds  with  an 
embarrassed  air  on  the  stone  step,  and  then, 
throwing  a  furtive  glance  up  at  the  second-story 
windows,  paseed  hastily  down  the  street  towards 
the  river,  keeping  close  to  the  fences  and  garden 
walls  on  her  left. 

There  was  a  ghostlike  stealthiness  to  Miss  Mar- 
garet's  movements,  though  there  w^s   nothing 


56  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

whatever  of  the  ghost  about  Miss  Margaret  her- 
self. She  was  a  plump,  short  jDerson,  no  longer 
young,  with  coal-black  hair  growing  low  on  the 
forehead,  and  a  round  face  that  would  have 
been  nearly  meaningless  if  the  features  had  not 
been  emphasized  —  italicized,  so  to  speak  —  by 
the  small-pox.  Moreover,  the  brilliancy  of  her 
toilet  would  have  rendered  any  ghostly  hypoth- 
esis untenable.  Mrs.  Solomon —  we  refer  to  the 
dressiest  Mrs.  Solomon,  which  ever  one  that  was 
—  in  all  her  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  Miss 
Margaret  on  that  eventful  summer  morning. 
She  wore  a  light-green,  shot-silk  frock,  a  blaz- 
ing red  shawl,  and  a  yellow  crape  bonnet  pro- 
fusely decorated  with  azure,  orange,  and  magenta 
artificial  flowers.  In  her  hand  she  carried  a 
white  parasol.  The  newly  risen  sun,  ricocheting 
from  the  bosom. of  the  river  and  striking  point- 
blank  on  the  top-knot  of  Miss  Margaret's  gor- 
geousness,  made  her  an  imposing  spectacle  in 
the  quiet  street  of  that  Puritan  village.  But,  in 
spite  of  the  bravery  of  her  apparel,  she  stole 
guiltily  along  by  garden  walls  and  fences  until 
she  reached  a  small,  dingy  framehouse  near  the 
wharves,  in  the  darkened  doorway  of  which  she 


A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  hi 

quenched  her  burning   splendor,   if   so   bold  a 
figure  is  permissible. 

Three  quarters  of  an  hour  passed.  Ttie  sun- 
shine moved  slowly  up  Anchor  Street,  fingered 
noiselessly  the  well-kept  brass  knockers  on  either 
side,  and  drained  the  heeltaps  of  dew  which  had 
been  left  from  the  revels  of  the  fairies  overnight 
in  the  cups  of  the  morning-glories.  Not  a  soul 
was  stirring  yet  in  this  part  of  the  town,  though 
the  Rivermouthians  are  such  early  birds  that  not 
a  worm  may  be  said  to  escape  them.  By  and  by 
one  of  the  brown  Holland  shades  at  one  of  the 
upper  windows  of  the  Bilkins  mansion  —  the 
house  from  which  Miss  Margaret  had  emerged  — 
Was  drawn  up,  and  old  Mr.  Bilkins  in  spiral 
nightcap  looked  out  on  the  sunny  street.  Not 
a  living  creature  was  to  be  seen,  save  the  dissi- 
pated family  cat,  —  a  very  Lovelace  of  a  cat  that 
was  not  allowed  a  night-key,  —  who  was  sitting 
on  the  curbstone  opposite,  waiting  for  the  hall 
door  to  be  opened.  Three  quarters  of  an  hour, 
we  repeat,  had  passed,  when  Mrs.  Margaret 
O'Rouke,  nee  Callaghan,  issued  from  the  small, 
dingy  house  by  the  river,  and  regained  the  door- 
step of  the  Bilkins  mansion  in  the  same  stealthy 
fashion  in  which  she  liad  left  it. 


58  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

Not  to  prolong  a  mystery  that  must  already 
oppress  the  reader,  Mr.  Bilkins's  cook  had,  after 
the  manner  of  her  kind,  stolen  out  of  the  prem- 
ises before  the  family  were  up,  and  got  herself 
married,  —  surreptitiously  and  artfully  married, 
as  if  matrimony  were  an  indictable  offence. 

And  something  of  an  offence  it  was  in  this 
instance.  In  the  first  place,  Margaret  Callaghan 
had  lived  nearly  twenty  years  with  the  Bilkins 
family,  and  the  old  people  —  there  were  no  cliil- 
dren  now  —  had  rewarded  this  long  service  by 
taking  Margaret  into  their  affections.  It  was 
a  piece  of  subtile  ingratitude  for  her  to  marry 
without  admitting  the  worthy  couple  to  her  con- 
fidence. In  the  next  place,  Margaret  had  mar- 
ried a  man  some  eighteen  years  younger  thaix 
herseK.  That  was  the  young  man's  lookout,  you 
say.  We  hold  it  was  Margaret  that  was  to 
blame.  What  does  a  young  blade  of  twenty-two 
know  ?  Not  half  so  much  as  he  tliinks  he  does. 
His  exhaustless  ignorance  at  that  age  is  a  dis- 
covery which  is  left  for  him  to  make  in  his 
prime. 

*' Curly  gold  locks  cover  foolish  brains, 
Billing  and  cooing  is  all  your  cheer  ; 
3* 


A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  59 

Sighing  and  singing  of  midnight  strains, 
Under  Bonnybell's  window  panes,  — 
"Wait  till  you  come  to  Forty  Year  ! " 

In  one  sense  Margaret's  husband  had  come 
to  forty  year,  —  she  was  forty  to  a  day. 

Mrs.  Margaret  O'Rouke,  with  the  baddish  cat 
following  closely  at  her  heels,  entered  the  Bilkins 
mansion,  reached  her  chamber  in  the  attic  with- 
out being  intercepted,  and  there  laid  aside  her 
finery.  Two  or  three  times,  while  arranging  her 
more  humble  attire,  she  paused  to  take  a  look  at 
the  marriage  certificate,  which  she  had  deposited 
between  the  leaves  of  her  Prayer-Book,  and  on 
each  occasion  held  that  potent  document  upside 
down ;  for  Margaret's  literary  culture  was  of  the 
severest  order,  and  excluded  the  art  of  reading. 

The  breakfast  was  late  that  morning.  As 
Mrs.  O'Rouke  set  the  coffee-urn  in  front  of  Mrs. 
Bilkins  and  flanked  Mr.  Bilkins  with  the  broiled 
mackerel  and  the  buttered  toast,  Mrs.  O'Rouke's 
conscience  smote  her.  She  afterwards  declared 
that  when  she  saw  the  two  sitting  there  so  inno- 
cent-like, not  dreaming  of  the  comether  she  had 
put  upon  them,  she  secretly  and  unbeknownt  let  a 
few  tears  fall  into  the  cream-pitcher.   Whether  or 


60  A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

not  it  was  this  material  expression  of  Margaret's 
penitence  that  spoiled  the  coffee,  does  not  admit 
of  inquiry ;  but  the  coffee  was  bad.  In  fact,  the 
whole  breakfast  was  a  comedy  of  errors. 

It  was  a  blessed  relief  to  Margaret  when  the 
meal  was  ended.  She  retired  in  a  cold  perspira- 
tion  to  the  penetralia  of  the  kitchen,  and  it  was 
remarked  by  both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bilkins  that 
those  short  flights  of  vocalism,  —  apropos  of  the 
personal  charms  of  one  Kate  Kearney  who  lived 
on  the  banks  of  Killarney,  —  which  ordinarily 
issued  from  the  direction  of  the  scullery,  were 
unheard  that  forenoon. 

The  town  clock  was  striking  eleven,  and  the 
antiquated  timepiece  on  the  staircase  (which 
never  spoke  but  it  dropped  pearls  and  crystals, 
like  the  fairy  in  the  story)  was  lisping  the  hour, 
when  there  came  three  tremendous  knocks  at  the 
street  door.  Mrs.  Bilkins,  who  was  dusting  the 
brass-mounted  chronometer  in  the  hall,  stood 
transfixed  with  arm  uplifted.  The  admirable  old 
lady  had  for  years  been  carrying  on  a  guerilla 
warfare  with  itinerant  vendors  of  furniture  pol- 
ish, and  pain-killer,  and  crockery  cement,  an(J 
the  like.     The  effrontery  of  the  triple  knock  con- 


A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  61 

vinced  her  the  enemy  was  at  her  gates,  —  pos- 
sibly that  dissolute  creature  with  twenty-four 
sheets  of  note-paper  and  twenty-four  envelopes 
for  fifteen  cents. 

Mrs.  Bilkins  swept  across  the  hall,  and  opened 
the  door  with  a  jerk.  The  suddenness  of  the 
movement  was  apparently  not  anticipated  by  the 
person  outside,  who,  with  one  arm  stretched  fee- 
bly towards  the  receding  knocker,  tilted  gently 
forward,  and  rested  both  hands  on  the  tlireshold 
in  an  attitude  which  was  probably  common 
enough  with  our  ancestors  of  the  Simian  period, 
but  could  never  have  been  considered  graceful. 
By  an  effort  that  testified  to  the  excellent  con- 
dition of  his  muscles,  the  person  instantly  righted 
himself,  and  stood  swaying  unsteadily  on  his  toes 
and  heels,  and  smiling  rather  vaguely  on  Mrs. 
Bilkins. 

It  was  a  slightly  built,  but  well-knitted  young 
fellow  in  the  not  unpicturesque  garb  of  our 
marine  service.  His  woollen  cap,  pitched  for- 
ward at  an  acute  angle  with  his  nose,,  showed 
the  back  part  of  a  head  thatched  with  short, 
yellow  hair,  which  had  broken  into  innumerable 
curls  of  painful  tightness.    On  his  ruddy  cheeks 


62  A    RIVEKMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

a  sparse  sandy  beard  was  making  a  timid  debut. 
Add  to  this  a  weak,  good-natured  mouth,  a  pair 
of  devil-may-care  blue  eyes,  and  the  fact  that  the 
man  was  very  drunk,  and  you  have  a  pre-Rapha- 
elite  portrait  —  we  may  as  well  say  it  at  once  — 
of  Mr.  Larry  O'Rouke  of  Ballyshanty,  County 
Connaught,  and  late  of  the  U.  S.  sloop-of-war 
Santee. 

The  man  was  a  total  stranger  to  Mrs.  Bilkins  ; 
but  the  instant  she  caught  sight  of  the  double 
white  anchors  embroidered  on  the  lapels  of  his 
jacket,  she  unhesitatingly  threw  back  the  door, 
which,  with  great  presence  of  mind,  she  had 
partly  closed. 

A  drunken  sailor  standing  on  the  step  of  the 
Bilkins  mansion  was  no  novelty.  The  street,  as 
we  have  stated,  led  down  to  the  wharves,  and 
sailors  were  constantly  passing.  The  house 
abutted  directly  on  the  street ;  the  granite  door- 
step was  almost  flush  with  the  sidewalk,  and  the 
huge  old-fashioned  brass  knocker  —  seemingly  a 
brazen  hand  that  had  been  cut  off  at  the  wrist, 
and  nailed  against  the  oak  as  a  warning  to  male- 
factors—  extended  itself  in  a  kind  of  grim  ap- 
peal to  everybody.     It  seemed  to  possess  strange 


A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  63 

fascinations  for  all  seafaring  folk ;  and  when 
there  was  a  man-of-war  in  port  the  rat-tat-tat  of 
that  knocker  would  frequently  startle  the  quiet 
neighborhood  long  after  midnight.  There  ap- 
peared to  be  an  occult  understanding  between  it 
and  the  blue-jackets.  Years  ago  there  was  a 
young  Bilkins,  one  Pendexter  Bilkins,  —  a  sad 
losel,  we  fear,  —  who  ran  away  to  try  his  for- 
tunes before  the  mast,  and  fell  overboard  in  a 
gale  off  Hatteras.  "  Lost  at  sea,'*  says  the  chubby 
marble  slab  in  the  Old  South  Burying-Ground, 
"  cetat  18."  Perhaps  that  is  why  no  blue-jacket, 
sober  or  drunk,  was  ever  repulsed  from  the  door 
of  the  Bilkins  mansion. 

Of  course  Mrs.  Bilkins  had  her  taste  in  the 
matter,  and  preferred  them  sober.  But  as  this 
could  not  always  be,  she  tempered  her  wind,  so 
to  speak,  to  the  shorn  lamb.  The  flushed,  pre- 
maturely old  face  that  now  looked  up  at  her 
moved  the  good  lady's  pity. 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  "   she  asked  kindly. 

"  Me  wife.'* 

"  There  's  no  wife  for  you  here,"  said  Mrs. 
Bilkins,  somewhat  taken  aback.  "  His  wife  !  " 
she  thought ;  "  it 's  a  mother  the  poor  boy  stands 
in  need  of." 


64  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

"  Me  wife,"  repeated  Mr.  O'Rouke,  "  for  bet^ 
ther  or  for  worse." 

"  You  had  better  go  away,"  said  Mrs.  Bilkins, 
bridling  up,  "  or  it  will  be  the  worse  for  you." 

"  To  have  and  to  howld,"  continued  Mr. 
O'Rouke,  wandering  retrospectively  in  the  mazes 
of  the  marriage  service,  "  to  have  and  to  howld, 
till  death  —  bad  luck  to  him !  —  takes  one  or  the 
ither  of  us." 

"  You  're  a  blasphemous  creature,"  said  Mrs. 
Bilkins,  severely. 

"  Thim  's  the  words  his  riverince  spake  this 
mornin',  standin'  foreninst  us,"  explained  Mr. 
O'Rouke.  "  I  stood  here,  see,  and  me  jew'l 
stood  there,  and  the  howly  chaplain  beyont." 

And  Mr.  O'Rouke  with  a  wavering  forefinger 
drew  a  diagram  of  the  interesting  situation  on 
the  doorstep. 

"  Well,"  returned  Mrs.  Bilkins,  "  if  you  're  a 
married  man,  all  I  have  to  say  is,  there  's  a  pair 
of  fools  instead  of  one.  You  had  better  be  off  ; 
the  person  you  want  does  n't  live  here." 

"  Bedad,  thin,  but  she  does." 

"  Lives  here  ?  " 

"  Sorra  a  place  else." 


A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  65 

"  The  man  's  crazy,"  said  Mrs.  Bilkins  to 
herself. 

While  she  thought  him  simply  drunk  she  was 
not  in  the  least  afraid  ;  but  the  idea  that  she 
was  conversing  with  a  madman  sent  a  chill  over 
her.  She  reached  back  her  hand  preparatory  to 
shutting  the  door,  when  Mr.  O'Rouke,  with  an 
agility  that  might  have  been  expected  from  his 
previous  gymnastics,  set  one  foot  on  the  thresh- 
old and  frustrated  the  design. 

"  I  want  me  wife,"  he  said  sternly. 

Unfortunately  Mr.  Bilkins  had  gone  up  town^ 
and  there  was  no  one  in  the  house  except  Mar- 
garet, whose  pluck  was  not  to  be  depended  on. 
The  case  was  urgent.  With  the  energy  of  de- 
spair Mrs.  Bilkins  suddenly  placed  the  toe  of  her 
boot  against  Mr.  O'Rouke's  invading  foot,  and 
pushed  it  away.  The  effect  of  this  attack  was 
to  cause  Mr.  O'Rouke  to  describe  a  complete 
circle  on  one  leg,  and  then  sit  down  heavily  on 
the  threshold.  The  lady  retreated  to  the  hat- 
stand,  and  rested  her  hand  mechanically  on  the 
handle  of  a  blue  cotton  umbrella.  Mr.  O'Rouke 
partly  turned  his  head  and  smiled  upon  her  with 
conscious  superiority.     At  this  juncture  a  third 


66  A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

actor  appeared  on  the  scene,  evidently  a  friend 
of  Mr.  O'Rouke,  for  he  addressed  that  gentleman 
as  "a  sapleen,"  and  told  him  to  go  home. 

"  Divil  an  inch,"  replied  the  sapleen ;  but  he 
got  himself  off  the  threshold,  and  resumed  his 
position  on  the  step. 

"  It 's  only  Larry,  mum,"  said  the  man,  touch- 
ing his  forelock  politely  ;  "  as  dacent  a  lad  as 
iver  lived,  when  he  's  not  in  liquor  ;  an'  I  've 
known  him  to  be  sober  for  days  togither,"  he 
added  reflectively.  "  He  don't  mane  a  hap'orth 
a'  harum,  but  jist  now  he  's  not  quite  in  his 
right  moind." 

"  I  should  think  not,"  said  Mrs.  Bilkins,  turn- 
ing from  the  speaker  to  Mr.  O'Rouke,  who  had 
seated  himself  gravely  on  the  scraper,  and  was 
weeping.     "  Has  n't  the  man  any  friends  ?  " 

"  Too  many  of  'em,  mum,  an'  it 's  along  wid 
.  dhrinkin'  toasts  wid  'em  that  Larry  got  throwed. 
The  punch  that  sapleen  has  dhrunk  this  day 
would  amaze  ye.  He  give  us  the  slip  awhiles 
ago,  bad  'cess  to  him,  an'  come  up  here.  Did 
n't  I  tell  ye,  Larry,  not  to  be  afther  ringin'  at 
the  owld  gintleman's  knocker  ?  Ain't  ye  got  no 
sinse  at  all  ? " 


A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  6? 

"  Misther  Donnehugh,"  said  Mr.  O'Rouke  with 
great  dignity,  "  ye  're  dhrunk  agin." 

Mr.  Donnehugh,  who  had  not  taken  more  than 
thirteen  ladles  of  rum-punch,  disdained  to  reply 
directly. 

"He's  a  dacent  lad  enough,"  —  this  to  Mrs. 
Bilkins,  —  "but  his  head  is  wake.  Whin  he  's 
had  two  sups  o'  whiskey  he  belaves  he  's  dhrank 
a  bar'l  full.  A  gill  o'  wather  out  of  a  jimmy- 
john  'd  fuddle  him,  mum." 

"  Is  n't  there  anybody  to  look  after  him  ?  " 

"  No,  mum,  he  's  an  orphan ;  his  father  and 
mother  live  in  the  owld  counthry,  an'  a  fine  hale 
owld  couple  they  are." 

"  Has  n't  he  any  family  in  the  town  — " 

"  Sure,  mum,  he  has  a  family ;  was  n't  hf 
married  this  blessed  mornin'  ?  " 

"  He  said  so." 

"Indade,  thin,  he  was,  —  the  pore  divil!-' 

"  And  the  —  the  person  ?  "  inquired  Mrs. 
Bilkins. 

"Is  it  the  wife  ye  mane  ?  " 

"  Yes,  the  wife :  where  is  she  ? " 

"  Well  thin,  mum,"  said  Mr.  Donnehugli, 
^'  it 's  yerself  that  can  answer  that." 


68  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

"  I  ?  "  exclaimed  Mrs.  Bilkins.  "  Good  heav- 
ens !  tliis  man  's  as  crazy  as  the  other !  " 

"  Begorra,  if  anybody  's  crazy  it  's  Larry,  for 
it  's  Larry  has  married  Margaret." 

"  What  Margaret  ?  "  cried  Mrs.  Bilkins  with 
a  start. 

"  Margaret  Callaghan,  sure." 

"  Our  Margaret?  Do  you  mean  to  say  that 
OUR  Margaret  has  married  that  —  that  good-for- 
nothing,  inebriated  wretch !  " 

"  It  's  a  civil  tongue  the  owld  lady  has,  any- 
way," remarked  Mr.  O'Rouke,  critically,  from 
the  scraper. 

Mrs.  Bilkins's  voice  during  the  latter  part  of 
the  colloquy  had  been  pitched  in  a  high  key ; 
it  rung  through  the  hall  and  penetrated  to  the 
kitchen,  where  Margaret  was  thoughtfully  wiping 
the  breakfast  things.  She  paused  with  a  half- 
dried  saucer  in  her  hand,  and  listened.  Li  a 
moment  more  she  stood,  with  bloodless  face  and 
limp  figure,  leaning  against  the  banister,  behind 
Mrs.  Bilkins. 

"Is  it  there  ye  are,  me  jew'l !  "  cries  Mr. 
O'Rouke,  discovering  her. 

Mrs.  Bilkins  wheeled  upon  Margaret. 


A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  69 

*'  Margaret  Callaglian,  is  that  thing  your 
husband  ?  " 

"  Ye-yes,  mum,"  faltered  Mrs.  O'Rouke,  with 
a  woful  lack  of  spirit.' 

"  Then  take  it  away  !  "  cried  Mrs.  Bilkins. 

Margaret,  with  a  slight  flush  on  either  cheek, 
glided  past  Mrs.  Bilkins,  and  the  heavy  oak  doot 
closed  with  a  bang,  as  the  gates  of  Paradise 
must  have  closed  of  old  upon  Adam  and  Eve. 

"  Come  !  "  said  Margaret,  taking  Mr.  O'Rouke 
by  the  hand ;  and  the  two  wandered  forth  upon 
their  wedding-journey  down  Anchor  Street,  with 
all  the  world  before  them  where  to  choose.  They 
chose  to  halt  at  the  small,  shabby  tenement-house 
by  the  river,  through  the  doorway  of  which  the 
bridal  pair  disappeared  with  a  reeling,  eccentric 
gait ;  for  Mr.  O'Rouke's  intoxication  seemed  to 
have  run  down  his  elbow,  and  communicated 
itself  to  Margaret. 

0  Hymen  !  who  burnest  precious  gums  and 
scented  woods  in  thy  torch  at  the  melting  of 
aristocratic  hearts,  with  what  a  pitiful  penny-dip 
thou  hast  lighted  up  our  matter-of-fact  romance ! 


70  A    RIVERMOUTH    KOMANCE. 


n. 


It  had  been  no  part  of  Margaret's  plan  to 
acknowledge  the  marriage  so  soon.  Though  on 
pleasure  bent,  she  had  a  frugal  mind.  She  had 
invested  in  a  husband  with  a  view  of  laying  him 
away  for  a  rainy  day,  that  is  to  say,  for  such  time 
as  her  master  and  mistress  should  cease  to  need 
her  services  ;  for  she  had  promised  on  more  than 
one  occasion  to  remain  witli  the  old  people  as 
long  as  they  lived.  And,  indeed,  if  Mr.  O'Rouke 
had  come  to  her  and  said  in  so  many  words, 
"  The  day  you  marry  me  you  must  leave  the  Bil- 
kins  family,"  there  is  very  little  doubt  but  Mar- 
garet would  have  let  that  young  sea-monster  slip 
back  unmated,  so  far  as  she  was  concerned,  into  his 
native  element.  The  contingency  never  entered 
into  her  calculations.  She  intended  that  the  ship 
which  had  brought  Ulysses  to  her  island  should 
take  him  off  again  after  a  decent  interval  of  hon- 
eymoon ;  then  she  would  confess  all  to  Mrs.  Bil- 
kins,  and  be  forgiven,  and  Mr.  Bilkins  would  not 


A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  71 

cancel  that  clause  supposed  to  exist  in  bis  will 
bequeathing  two  first-mortgage  bonds  of  the 
Squedunk  E,.  R.  Co.  to  a  certain  faithful  servant. 
In  the  mean  while  she  would  add  each  month  to 
her  store  in  the  coffers  of  the  Rivermouth  Sav- 
ings Bank ;  for  Calypso  had  a  neat  sum  to  her 
credit  on  the  books  of  that  provident  institution. 

But  this  could  not  be  now.  The  volatile  bride- 
groom had  upset  the  wisely  conceived  plan,  and 
"  all  the  fat  was  in  the  fire,"  as  Margaret  philo- 
sophically put  it.  Mr.  O'Rouke  had  been  fully 
instructed  in  the  part  he  was  to  play,  and,  to  do 
him  justice,  had  honestly  intended  to  play  it; 
but  destiny  was  against  him.  It  may  be  observed 
that  destiny  and  Mr.  O'Rouke  were  not  on  very 
friendly  terms. 

After  the  ceremony  had  been  performed  and 
Margaret  had  stolen  back  to  the  Bilkins  mansion, 
as  related,  Mr.  O'Rouke  with  his  own  skilful 
hands  had  brewed  a  noble  punch  for  the  wedding 
guests.  Standing  at  the  head  of  the  table  and 
stirring  the  pungent  mixture  in  a  small  wash-tub 
purchased  for  the  occasion,  Mr.  O'Rouke  came 
out  in  full  flower.  His  flow  of  wit,  as  he  replen- 
ished the  glasses,  was  as  racy  and  seemingly  as 


72  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

inexhaustible  as  the  punch  itself.  When  Mrs. 
McLaughlin  held  out  her  glass,  inadvertently  up- 
side down,  for  her  sixth  ladleful,  Mr.  O'Rouke 
gallantly  declared  it  should  be  filled  if  he  had  to 
stand  on  his  head  to  do  it.  The  elder  Miss 
O'Leary  whispered  to  Mrs.  Connally  that  Mr. 
O'Rouke  was  "  a  perfic  gintleman,"  and  the  men 
in  a  body  pronounced  him  a  bit  of  the  raal  sham- 
rock. If  Mr.  O'Rouke  was  happy  in  brewing  a 
punch,  he  was  happier  in  dispensing  it,  and  hap- 
piest of  all  in  drinking  a  great  deal  of  it  himself. 
He  toasted  Mrs.  Finnigan,  the  landlady,  and  the 
late  lamented  Finnigan,  the  father,  wliom  he  had 
never  seen,  and  Miss  Biddy  Finnigan,  the  daugh- 
ter, and  a  young  toddling  Finnigan,  who  was  at 
large  in  shockingly  scant  raiment.  He  drank  to 
the  company  individually  and  collectively,  drank 
to  the  absent,  drank  to  a  tin-pedler  who  chanced 
to  pass  the  window,  and  indeed  was  in  that  pro- 
pitiatory mood  when  he  would  have  drunk  to  the 
health  of  each  separate  animal  that  came  out  of 
the  Ark.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion 
and  applause  which  followed  his  song,  "  The 
Wearing  of  the  Grane,"  that  Mr.  O'Rouke,  the 
punch  being  all  gone,  withdrew  unobserved  and 


A.    RIVERMOUTII    ROMANCE.  73 

went  in  quest  of  Mrs.  O'Rouke,  —  with  what  suc- 
cess the  reader  knows. 

According  to  the  love-idyl  of  the  period,  when 
Laura  and  Charles  Henry,  after  unheard-of  ob- 
stacles, are  finally  united,  all  cares  and  tribula- 
tions and  responsibilities  slip  from  their  sleek 
backs  like  Christian's  burden.  The  idea  is  a 
pretty  one,  theoretically,  but,  like  some  of  those 
models  in  the  Patent  Office  at  Washington,  it 
does  n't  work.  Charles  Henry  does  not  go  on 
sitting  at  Laura's  feet  and  reading  Timothy  Tit- 
comb  to  her  forever  :  the  rent  of  the  cottage  by 
the  sea  falls  due  with  prosaic  regularity;  there 
are  bakers,  and  butchers,  and  babies,  and  tax-col- 
lectors, and  doctors,  and  undertakers,  and  some- 
times gentlemen  of  the  jury  to  be  attended  to. 
Wedded  life  is  not  one  long  amatory  poem  with 
recurrent  rhymes  of  love  and  dove,  and  kiss  and 
bliss.  Yet  when  the  average  sentimental  novel- 
ist has  supplied  his  hero  and  heroine  with  their 
bridal  outfit  and  attended  to  that  little  matter  of 
the  marriage  certificate,  he  usually  turns  off  the^ 
gas,  puts  up  his  shutters,  and  saunters  off  with 
his  hands  in  his  pockets,  as  if  the  day's  business 


74  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

were  over.  But  we,  who  are  honest  dealers  in  leal 
life  and  disdain  to  give  short  weight,  know  better. 
The  business  is  by  no  means  over :  it  is  just  be- 
gun. It  is  not  Christian  throwing  off  his  pack  for 
good  and  all,  but  Christian  taking  up  a  load  heav- 
ier and  more  difficult  than  any  he  has  carried. 

If  Margaret  Callaghan,  when  she  meditated 
matrimony,  indulged  in  any  roseate  dreams,  they 
were  quickly  put  to  flight.  She  suddenly  found 
herself  dispossessed  of  a  quiet,  comfortable  home, 
and  face  to  face  with  the  fact  that  she  had  a  white 
elephant  on  her  hands.  It  is  not  likely  that  Mr. 
O'Rouke  assumed  precisely  the  shape  of  a  white 
elephant  to  her  mental  vision ;  but  he  was  as  use- 
less and  cumbersome  and  unmanageable  as  one. 

Margaret  and  Larry's  wedding-tour  did  not 
extend  beyond  Mrs.  Finnigan's  establishment, 
where  they  took  two  or  three  rooms  and  set  up 
housekeeping  in  a  humble  way.  Margaret,  who 
was  a  tidy  housewife,  kept  the  floor  of  her  apart- 
ments as  white  as  your  hand,  the  tin  plates  on 
the  dresser  as  bright  as  your  lady-love's  eyes,  and 
the  cooking-stove  as  neat  as  the  machinery  on  a 
Sound  steamer.  When  she  was  not  rubbing  the 
stove  with  lamp-black  she  was  cooking  upon  it 


A    RIVERMOITH    ROMANCE.  75 

Bome  savory  dish  to  tempt  the  palate  of  her  ma^ 
rine  monster.  Naturally  of  a  hopeful  temperar 
ment,  she  went  about  her  work  singing  softly  to 
herself  at  times,  and  would  have  been  very  happy 
that  first  week  if  Mr.  O'Rouke  had  known  a  sober 
moment.  But  Mr.  O'Rouke  showed  an  exasper- 
ating  disposition  to  keep  up  festivities.  At  the 
end  of  ten  days,  however,  he  toned  down,  and  at 
Margaret's  suggestion  that  he  had  better  be  look- 
ing about  for  some  employment,  he  rigged  him- 
self up  a  fishing-pole  and  set  out  with  an  injured 
air  for  the  wharf  at  the  foot  of  the  street,  where 
he  fished  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  To  sit  for 
hours  blinking  in  the  sun,  waiting  for  a  cunner 
to  come  along  and  take  his  hook,  was  as  exhaust- 
ive a  kind  of  labor  as  he  cared  to  engage  in. 
Though  Mr.  O'Rouke  had  recently  returned  from 
a  long  cruise,  he  had  not  a  cent  to  show.  Dur- 
ing his  first  three  days  ashore  he  had  dissipated 
his  three  years'  pay.  The  housekeeping  expenses 
began  eating  a  hole  in  Margaret's  little  fund,  the 
existence  of  which  was  no  sooner  known  to  Mr. 
O'Rouke  than  he  stood  up  his  fishing-rod  in  one 
corner  of  the  room,  and  thenceforth  it  caught 
nothing  but  cobwebs. 


76  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

"  Divil  a  sthroke  o'  work  I  '11  do,"  said  Mr. 
O'Eouke,  "  whin  we  can  live  at  aise  on  our 
earnin's.  Who  'd  be  afther  frettin'  hisself,  wid 
money  in  the  bank  ?  How  much  is  it,  Peggy 
darlint  ?  " 

And  divil  a  stroke  more  of  work  did  he  do. 
He  lounged  down  on  the  wharves,  and,  with  his 
short  clay  pipe  stuck  between  his  lips  and  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  stared  off  at  the  sail-boats 
on  the  river.  He  sat  on  the  doorstep  of  the 
Finnigan  domicile,  and  plentifully  chaffed  the 
passers-by.  Now  and  then,  when  he  could  whee- 
dle some  fractional  currency  out  of  Margaret,  he 
spent  it  like  a  crown-prince  at  The  Wee  Drop 
around  the  corner.  With  that  fine  magnetism 
which  draws  together  birds  of  a  feather,  he 
shortly  drew  about  him  all  the  ne'er-do-weels  of 
Eivermouth.  It  was  really  wonderful  what  an 
unsuspected  lot  of  them  there  was.  From  all  the 
frowzy  purlieus  of  the  town  they  crept  forth  into 
the  sunlight  to  array  themselves  under  the  ban- 
ner of  the  prince  of  scallawags.  It  was  edifying 
of  a  summer  afternoon  to  see  a  dozen  of  them 
sitting  in  a  row,  like  turtles.,  on  the  string-piece 
of  Jedediah  Rand's  wharf,  with   their  twenty- 


A    RIVEi^MOUTH    ROMANCE.  77 

four  feet  dangling  over  the  water,  assisting  Mr. 
O'Rouke  in  contemplating  the  islands  in  the 
harbor,  and  upholding  the  scenery,  as  it  were. 

The  rascal  had  one  accomplishment,  he  had  a 
heavenly  voice,  quite  in  the  rough,  to  be  sure, 
and  Jie  played  on  the  violin  like  an  angel.  He  did 
not  know  one  note  from  another,  but  he  played 
in  a  sweet  natural  way,  just  as  Orpheus  must 
have  played,  by  ear.  The  drunker  he  was  the 
more  pathos  and  humor  he  wrung  from  the  old 
violin,  his  sole  piece  of  personal  property.  He 
had  a  singular  fancy  for  getting  up  at  two  or 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  playing  by  an 
open  casement.  All  the  dogs  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  and  innumerable  dogs  in  the  dis- 
tance would  join  to  swell  the  chorus  on  a  scale 
that  would  have  satisfied  Mr.  Gilmore  himself. 

Unfortunately  Mr.  O'Rouke's  betises  were  not 
always  of  so  innocent  a  complexion.  On  one  or 
two  occasions,  through  an  excess  of  animal  and 
other  spirits,  he  took  to  breaking  windows  in 
the  town.  Among  his  nocturnal  feats  he  accom- 
pHshed  the  demolition  of  the  glass  in  the  door 
of  The  Wee  Drop.  Now,  breaking  windows  in 
Rivermouth  is  an  amusement  not  wholly  discoy- 


78  A    RIVEEMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

nected  witli  an  interior  view  of  the  police-station 
(bridewell  is  the  local  term)  ;  so  it  happened 
that  Mr.  O'Rouke  woke  up  one  fine  morning  and 
found  himself  snug  and  tight  in  one  of  the  cells 
in  the  rear  of  the  Brick  Market.  His  plea  that 
the  bulFs-eye  in  the  glass  door  of  The  Wee  Drop 
winked  at  him  in  an  insultin'  manner  as  he  was 
passing  by  did  not  prevent  Justice  Hackett  from 
fining  the  delinquent  ten  dollars  and  costs,  which 
made  sad  havoc  with  the  poor  wife's  bank  ac- 
count. So  Margaret's  married  life  wore  on,  and 
all  went  merry  as  a  funeral  knell. 

After  Mrs.  Bilkins,  with  a  brow  as  severe  as 
one  of  the  Parcae,  had  closed  the  door  upon  the 
O'Roukes  that  summer  morning,  she  sat  down 
on  the  stairs,  and,  sinking  the  indignant  goddess 
in  the  woman,  burst  into  tears.  She  was  still 
very  wroth  with  Margaret  Callaghan,  as  she 
persisted  in  calling  her ;  very  merciless  and  un- 
forgiving, as  the  gentler  sex  are  apt  to  be  —  to 
the  gentler  sex.  Mr.  Bilkins,  however,  after  the 
first  vexation,  missed  Margaret  from  the  house- 
hold ;  missed  her  singing,  which  was  in  itself  as 
helpful  as  a  second  girl ;  missed  her  hand  in  the 
preparation  of  those  hundred  and  one  nameless 


A    RIVERMOUTU    ROMANCE.  79 

comforts  which  arc  necessities  to  the  old,  and 
wished  in  his  soul  that  he  had  her  back  again. 
Who  could  make  a  gruel,  when  he  was  ill,  or 
cook  a  steak,  wlien  he  was  well,  like  Margaret  ? 
So,  meeting  her  one  morning  at  the  fish-market, 
—  for  Mr.  O'Rouke  had  long  since  given  over 
the  onerous  labor  of  catching  cunners,  —  he 
spoke  to  her  kindly,  and  asked  her  how  she  liked 
the  change  in  her  life,  and  if  Mr.  O'Rouke  was 
good  to  her. 

"  Troth,  thin,  sur,"  said  Margaret,  with  a 
short  dry  laugh,  "he  's  the  divil's  own  !  " 

Margaret  was  thin  and  careworn,  and  her 
laugh  had  the  mild  gayety  of  champagne  not 
properly  corked.  These  things  were  apparent 
even  to  Mr.  Bilkins,  who  was  not  a  shrewd  ob- 
server. With  a  duplicity  quite  foreign  to  his 
nature,  he  gradually  drew  from  her  the  true 
state  of  affairs.  Mr.  O'Rouke  was  a  very  bad 
case  indeed  ;  he  did  nothing  towards  her  sup- 
port ;  he  was  almost  constantly  drunk ;  the  little 
money  she  had  laid  by  was  melting  away,  and 
would  not  last  until  winter.  Mr.  O'Rouke  was 
perpetually  coming  home  with  a  sprained  ankle, 
01-  a  bruised  shouJder,  or  a  broken  head.     He 


80  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

had  broken  most  of  the  furniture  in  his  festive 
hours,  including  the  cooking-stove.  "  In  short," 
as  Mr.  Bilkins  said  in  relating  the  matter  after- 
wards to  Mrs.  Bilkins,  "  he  had  broken  all  those 
things  which  he  should  n't  have  broken,  and 
failed  to  break  the  one  thing  he  ought  to  have 
broken  long  ago,  —  his  neck,  namely." 

The  revelation  which  startled  Mr.  Bilkins 
most  was  this  :  in  spite  of  all,  Margaret  loved 
Larry  with  the  whole  of  her  warm  Irish  heart. 
Further  than  keeping  the  poor  creature  up  wait- 
ing for  him  until  ever  so  much  o'clock  at  night, 
it  did  not  appear  that  he  treated  her  with  per- 
sonal cruelty.  If  he  had  beaten  her,  she  would 
have  worshipped  liim ;  as  it  was,  she  merely 
loved  the  ground  he  trod  upon. 

Eevolving  Margaret's  troubles  in  his  thoughts 
as  he  walked  homeward,  Mr.  Bilkins  struck  upon 
a  plan  by  which  he  could  help  her.  When  this 
plan  was  laid  before  Mrs.  Bilkins,  she  opposed  it 
with  a  vehemence  that  convinced  him  she  had 
made  up  her  mind  to  adopt  it. 

"  Never,  never  will  I  have  that  ungrateful 
woman  under  this  roof ! "  cried  Mrs.  Bilkins ; 
and   accordingly   the   next   day   Mr.    and    Mrs. 


A    RIVERMOUTII    ROMANCE.  81 

O'Rouke  took  up  their  abode  in  the  Bilkins 
mansion,  —  Margaret  as  cook,  and  Larry  as 
gardener. 

"  I'm  convanient  if  the  owld  gintleman  is," 
had  been  Mr.  O'Rouke's  remark,  when  the  prop- 
osition was  submitted  to  him.  Not  that  Mr. 
O'Rouke  had  the  faintest  itiea  of  gardening.  He 
did  n't  know  a  tuhp  from  a  tomato.  He  was 
one  of  those  sanguine  people  who  never  hesitate 
to  undertake  anything,  and  are  never  abashed  by 
their  herculean  inability. 

Mr.  Bilkins  did  not  look  to  Margaret's  hus- 
band for  any  great  botanical  knowledge  ;  but  he 
was  rather  surprised  one  day  when  Mr.  O'Rouke 
pointed  to  the  triangular  bed  of  lilies-of-the-val- 
ley,  then  out  of  flower,  and  remarked,  "  Thim  's 
a  nate  lot  o'  purtaties  ye  've  got  there,  sur." 
Mr.  Bilkins,  we  repeat,  did  not  expect  much 
from  Mr.  O'Rouke's  skill  in  gardening ;  his  pur- 
pose was  to  reform  the  fellow  if  possible,  and  in 
any  case  to  make  Margaret's  lot  easier. 

Re-established  in  her  old  home,  Margaret 
broke  into  song  again,  and  Mr.  O'Rouke  himself 
promised  to  do  very  well ;  morally,  we  mean,  not 
agriculturally.      His   ignorance  of   the  simplest 

4*  P 


SXX^ 


82  A    mVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

laws  of  nature,  if  nature  has  any  simple  laws, 
and  liis  dense  stupidity  on  every  other  subject 
were  heavy  trials  to  Mr.  Bilkins.  Happily  Mr. 
Bilkins  was  not  without  a  sense  of  humor,  else 
he  would  have  found  ISlv.  O'Rouke  insupportable. 
Just  when  the  old  gentleman's  patience  was 
about  exhausted,  the  gardener  would  commit 
some  atrocity  so  perfectly  comical  that  his  master 
all  but  loved  him  for  the  moment. 

"  Larry,"  said  Mr.  Bilkins,  one  breathless  af- 
ternoon in  the  middle  of  September,  "  just  see 
how  the  thermometer  on  the  back  porch  stands." 

Mr.  O'Rouke  disappeared,  and  after  a  pro- 
longed absence  returned  with  the  monstrous  an- 
nouncement that  the  thermometer  stood  at  820  ! 

Mr.  Bilkins  looked  at  the  man  closely.  He 
was  unmistakably  sober. 

"  Eight  hundred  and  twenty  what  ?  "  cried  Mr. 
Bilkins,  feeling  very  warm,  as  he  naturally  would 
in  so  high  a  temperature. 

"  Eight  hundthred  an'  twinty  degrays,  I  sup- 
pose, sur." 

"  Larry,  you  're  an  idiot." 

This  was  obviously  not  to  Mr.  O'Rouke's  taste ; 
for  he  went  out  and  brought  the  thermometer, 


A    RIVERMOUTII    ROMANCE.  83 

and,  pointing  triumphantly  to  the  line  of  numer- 
als running  parallel  with  the  glass  tube,  ex- 
claimed, "  Add  'em  up  yerself ,  thin  !  " 

Perhaps  this  would  not  have  been  amusing  !if 
Mr.  Bilkins  had  not  spent  the  greater  part  of  the 
previous  forenoon  in  initiating  Mr.  O'Rouke  in- 
to the  mysteries  of  the  thermometer.  Nothing 
could  make  amusing  Mr.  O'Rouke's  method  of 
setting  out  crocus  bulbs.  Mr.  Bilkins  had  re- 
ceived a  lot  of  a  very  choice  variety  from  Boston, 
and  having  a  headache  that  morning,  turned  over 
to  Mr.  O'Rouke  the  duty  of  planting  them. 
Though  he  had  never  seen  a  bulb  in  his  life, 
Larry  unblushingly  asserted  that  he  had  set  out 
thousands  for  Sir  Lucius  0' Grady,  of  0' Grady 
Castle,  "  an  illegant  place  intirely,  wid  tin  miles 
o'  garden-walks,"  added  Mr.  O'Rouke,  crushing 
Mr.  Bilkins,  who  boasted  only  of  a  few  humble 
flower-beds. 

The  following  day  he  stepped  into  the  garden 
to  see  how  Larry  had  done  his  work.  There 
stood  the  parched  bulbs,  carefully  arranged  in 
circles  and  squares  on  top  of  the  soil. 

"  Did  n't  I  tell  you  to  set  out  these  bulbs  ?  " 
cried  Mr.  Bilkins,  wrathfully. 


84  A   mVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

"  An'  did  n't  I  set  'em  out  ?  "  expostulated 
Mr.  O'Rouke.  "An'  ain't  they  a  settin'  there 
beautiful  ?  " 

"  But  you  should  have  put  them  into  the 
ground,  stupid  !  " 

"  Is  it  bury  'em,  ye  mane  ?  Be  jabbers  !  how 
Ijould  they  iver  git  out  agin  ?  Give  the  little 
■jokers  a  fair  show,  Misther  Bilkins  !  " 

For  two  weeks  Mr.  O'Rouke  conducted  him- 
self with  comparative  propriety ;  that  is  to  say, 
be  rendered  himself  useless  about  the  place,  ap- 
peared regularly  at  his  meals,  and  kept  sober. 
Ferhaps  the  hilarious  strains  of  music  which 
isometimefci  issued  at  midnight  from  the  upper 
window  of  the  north  gable  were  not  just  what 
a  quiet,  unostentatious  family  would  desire  ;  but 
on  the  whole  there  was  not  much  to  complain  of. 

The  third  week  witnessed  a  falling  off.  Though 
always  promptly  on  hand  at  the  serving  out  of 
rations,  Mr.  O'Rouke  did  not  even  make  a  pre- 
tence of  working  in  the  garden.  He  would  disap- 
pear mysteriously  immediately  after  breakfast  and 
reappear  with  supernatural  abruptness  at  dinner. 
Nobody  knew  what  he  did  with  himself  in  the 
interval,  until  one  day  he  was  observed  to  fall 


A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  85 

out  of  an  apple-tree  near  the  stable.  His  retreat 
discovered,  he  took  to  the  wharves  and  the  alleys 
in  the  distant  part  of  the  town.  It  soon  became 
evident  that  his  ways  were  not  the  ways  of  tem- 
perance, and  that  all  his  paths  led  to  The  Wee 
Drop. 

Of  course,  Margaret  tried  to  keep  this  from 
the  family.  Being  a  woman,  she  made  excuses 
for  him  in  her  heart.  It  was  a  dull  life  for  the 
lad  anyway,  and  it  was  worse  than  him  that  was 
leading  Larry  astray.  Hours  and  hours  after 
the  old  people  had  gone  to  bed,  she  would  sit 
without  a  light  in  the  lonely  kitchen,  listening 
for  that  shuffling  step  along  the  gravel-walk. 
Night  after  night  she  never  closed  her  eyes,  and 
went  about  the  house  the  next  day  with  that 
smooth,  impenetrable  face  behind  which  women 
hide  their  care. 

One  morning  found  Margaret  sitting  pale  and 
anxious  by  the  kitchen  stove.  O'Rouke  had  not 
come  home  at  all.  Noon  came  and  night,  but 
not  Larry.  Wlienever  Mrs.  Bilkins  approached 
her  that  day,  Margaret  was  humming  "  Kate 
Kearney  "  quite  merrily.  But  when  her  work 
was  done,  she  stole  out  at  the  back  gate  and 


86  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

went  in  search  of  him.  She  scoured  the  neigh- 
borhood like  a  madwoman.  O'Rouke  had  not 
been  at  the  Finnigans'.  He  had  not  been  at 
The  Wee  Drop  since  Monday,  and  this  was 
Wednesday  night.  Her  heart  sunk  within  her 
wlien  she  failed  to  find  him  in  the  police  station. 
Some  dreadful  thing  had  happened  to  him.  She 
came  back  to  the  house  with  one  hand  pressed 
wearily  against  her  cheek.  The  dawn  struggled 
through  the  kitchen  windows,  and  fell  upon  Mar- 
garet crouched  by  the  stove. 

She  could  no  longer  wear  her  mask.  When 
Mr.  Bilkins  came  down  she  confessed  that  Larry 
had  taken  to  drinking  again,  and  had  not  been 
home  for  two  nights. 

"  Mayhap  he  's  drownded  hisself,"  suggested 
Margaret,  wringing  her  hands. 

"  Not  he,"  said  Mr.  Bilkins  ;  "  he  does  n't  like 
the  taste  of  water  well  enough." 

"  Troth,  thin,  he  does  n't,"  reflected  Margaret; 
and  the  reflection  comforted  her. 

"  At  any  rate,  I  '11  go  and  look  him  up  after 
breakfast,"  said  Mr.  Bilkins.  And  after  break- 
fast, accordingly,  Mr.  Bilkins  sallied  forth  with 
the  depressing  expectation  of  finding  Mr.  O'Rouke 


A    RIVERMOUTII    ROMANCE.  87 

without  much  difficulty.  "  Come  to  think  of  it," 
said  the  old  gentleman  to  liimseK,  drawing  on 
his  white  cotton  gloves  as  he  walked  up  Anchor 
Street,  "  /  don't  want  to  find  him." 


88  A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 


m. 


But  Mr.  O'Rouke  was  not  to  be  found.  With 
amiable  cynicism  Mr.  Bilkins  directed  his  steps 
in  the  first  instance  to  the  police  station,  quite 
confident  that  a  bird  of  Mr.  O'Rouke's  plumage 
would  be  brought  to  perch  in  such  a  cage.  But 
not  so  much  as  a  feather  of  him  was  discover- 
able. The  Wee  Drop  was  not  the  only  baccha- 
nalian resort  in  Rivermouth  ;  there  were  five 
or  six  other  low  drinking-shops  scattered  about 
town,  and  through  these  Mr.  Bilkins  went  con- 
scientiously. He  then  explored  various  blind 
alleys,  known  haunts  of  the  missing  man,  and 
took  a  careful  survey  of  the  wharves  along  the 
river  on  his  way  home.  He  even  shook  the  ap- 
ple-tree near  the  stable  with  a  vague  hope  of 
bringing  down  Mr.  O'Rouke,  but  brought  down 
nothing  except  a  few  winter  apples,  which,  being 
both  unripe  and  unsound,  were  not  perhaps  bad 
representatives  of  the  object  of  his  search. 

That  evening  a  small  boy  stopped  at  the  door 


A    IIIVERMOUTII    ROMANCE.  89 

of  the  Bilkins  mansion  with  a  straw  hat,  at  once 
identified  as  Mr.  O'Rouke's,  which  had  been 
found  on  Neal's  Wharf.  This  would  have  told 
against  another  man;  but  O'Rouke  was  always 
leaving  his  hat  on  a  wharf.  Margaret's  distress 
is  not  to  be  pictured.  She  fell  back  upon  and 
clung  to  the  idea  that  Larry  had  drowned  him- 
self, not  intentionally,  maybe;  possibly  he  had 
fallen  overboard  while  intoxicated. 

The  late  Mr.  Buckle  has  informed  us  that 
death  by  drowning  is  regulated  by  laws  as  invio- 
lable and  beautiful  as  those  of  the  solar  system ; 
that  a  certain  percentage  of  the  earth's  popula- 
tion is  bound  to  drown  itself  annually,  whether 
it  wants  to  or  not.  It  may  be  presumed,  then, 
that  Ri vermouth's  proper  quota  of  dead  bodies 
was  washed  ashore  during  the  ensuing  two 
months.  There  had  been  gales  off  the  coast  and 
pleasure  parties  on  the  river,  and  between  them 
they  had  managed  to  do  a  ghastly  business.  But 
Mr.  O'Rouke  failed  to  appear  among  the  flotsam 
and  jetsam  which  the  receding  tides  left  tangled 
in  the  piles  of  the  Rivermouth  wharves.  This 
convinced  Margaret  that  Larry  had  proved  a  too 
tempting  morsel  to  some  buccaneering  shark,  or 


90  A    KIVEEMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

had  fallen  a  victim  to  one  of  those  immense 
schools  of  fish  which  seem  to  have  a  yearly 
appointment  with  the  fishermen  on  this  coast. 
From  that  day  Margaret  never  saw  a  cod  or  a 
mackerel  brought  into  the  house  without  an  in- 
voluntary shudder.  She  averted  her  head  in 
making  up  the  fish-balls,  as  if  she  haK  dreaded 
to  detect  a  faint  aroma  of  whiskey  about  them. 
And,  indeed,  why  might  not  a  man  fall  into  the 
sea,  be  eaten,  say,  by  a  halibut,  and  reappear  on 
the  scene  of  his  earthly  triumphs  and  defeats  in 
the  non-committal  form  of  hashed  fish  ? 

"Imperial  Caesar,  dead,  and  turn'd  to  clay. 
Might  stop  a  hole  to  keep  the  wind  away." 

But,  perhaps,  as  the  conservative  Horatio  sug- 
gests, 'twere  to  consider  too  curiously  to  con- 
sider so. 

Mr.  Bilkins  had  come  to  adopt  Margaret's  ex- 
planation of  O'Rouke's  disappearance.  He  was 
undoubtedly  drowned,  had  most  likely  drowned 
himself.  The  hat  picked  up  on  the  wharf  was 
strong  circumstantial  evidence  in  that  direction. 
But  one  feature  of  the  case  staggered  Mr.  Bil- 
kins.  O'Rouke's  violin  had  also  disappeared. 
Now,  it  required  no  great  effort  to  imagine  a  mau 


A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  91 

throwing  himself  overboard  under  the  influence 
of  mania  a  potu  ;  but  it  was  difficult  to  conceive 
of  a  man  committing  violinicide !  If  the  fellow 
went  to  drown  himself,  why  did  he  take  his  fid- 
dle with  him  ?  He  might  as  well  have  taken  an 
umbrella  or  a  German  student-lamp.  This  ques- 
tion troubled  Mr.  Bilkins  a  good  deal  first  and 
last.  But  one  thing  was  indisputable  :  the  man 
was  gone,  —  and  had  evidently  gone  by  water. 

It  was  now  that  Margaret  invested  her  hus- 
band with  charms  of  mind  and  person  not  calcu- 
lated to  make  him  recognizable  by  any  one  who 
had  ever  had  the  privilege  of  knowing  him  in  the 
faulty  flesh.  She  eliminated  aU  his  bad  quali- 
ties, and  projected  from  her  imagination  a  Mr. 
O'Rouke  as  he  ought  to  have  been, —  a  species 
of  seraphic  being  mixed  up  in  some  way  with  a 
violin  ;  and  to  this  ideal  she  erected  a  headstone 
in  the  suburban  cemetery.  If  Mr.  O'Rouke  could 
have  read  the  inscription,  he  would  never  have 
suspected  his  own  complicity  in  the  matter. 

But  there  the  marble  stood,  sacred  to  his 
memory  ;  and  soon  the  snow  came  down  from 
the  gray  sky  and  covered  it,  and  the  invisible 
snow  of  weeks   and  months   drifted  down  on 


92  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

Margaret's  heart,  and  filled  up  its  fissures,  and 
smoothed  off  the  sharp  angles  of  its  grief ;  and 
there  was  peace  upon  it. 

Not  but  she  sorrowed  for  Larry  at  times.  But 
life  had  a  relish  to  it  again  ;  she  was  free,  though 
she  did  not  look  at  it  in  that  light ;  she  was  hap- 
pier in  a  quiet  fashion  than  she  had  ever  been, 
though  she  would  not  have  acknowledged  it  to 
herself.  She  wondered  that  she  had  the  heart  to 
laugh  when  the  ice-man  made  love  to  her.  Per- 
haps she  was  conscious  of  something  comically 
incongruous  in  the  warmth  of  a  gentleman  who 
spent  all  winter  in  cutting  ice,  and  all  summer 
in  dealing  it  out  to  his  customers.  She  had  not 
the  same  excuse  for  laughing  at  the  baker ;  yet 
she  laughed  still  more  merrily  at  him  when  he 
pressed  her  hand  over  the  steaming  loaf  of  brown- 
bread,  delivered  every  Saturday  morning  at  the 
scullery  door.  Both  these  gentlemen  had  known 
Margaret  many  years,  yet  neither  of  them  had 
valued  her  very  highly  until  another  man  came 
along  and  married  her.  A  widow,  it  would  ap- 
pear, is  esteemed  in  some  sort  as  a  warranted 
article,  being  stamped  with  the  maker's  name. 

There  was  even  a  third  lover  in  prospect ;  for 


A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  93 

according  to  the  gossip  of  the  town,  Mr.  Donne- 
hugh  was  frequently  to  be  seen  of  a  Sunday 
afternoon  standing  in  the  cemetery  and  regard- 
ing Mr.  O'Rouke's  lieadstone  with  unrestrained 
satisfaction. 

A  year  had  passed  away,  and  certain  bits  of 
color  blossoming  among  Margaret's  weeds  in- 
dicated that  the  winter  of  her  mourning  was 
over.  The  ice-man  and  the  baker  were  hating 
each  other  cordially,  and  Mrs.  Bilkins  was  daily 
expecting  it  would  be  discovered  before  night 
that  Margaret  had  married  one  or  both  of  them. 
But  to  do  Margaret  justice,  she  was  faithful  in 
thought  and  deed  to  the  memory  of  O'Rouke, 
—  not  the  O'Rouke  who  disappeared  so  strange- 
ly, but  the  O'Rouke  who  never  existed. 

"  D'  ye  think,  mum,"  she  said  one  day  to  Mrs. 
Bilkins,  as  that  lady  was  adroitly  sounding  her 
on  the  ice  question,  —  "d'ye  think  I'd  conde- 
scind  to  take  up  wid  the  likes  o'  him,  or  the  baker 
either,  afther  sich  a  man  as  Larry  ?  " 

The  rectified  and  clarified  O'Rouke  was  a  per- 
manent wonder  to  Mr.  Bilkins,  who  bore  up 
under  the  bereavement  with  remarkable  resig- 
nation. 


94  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

"  Peggy  is  right,' ^  said  the  old  gentleman, 
who  was  superintending  the  burning  out  of  the 
kitchen  flue.  "  She  won't  find  another  man 
like  Larry  O'Rouke,  in  a  hurry." 

"  Thrue  for  ye,  Mr.  Bilkins,"  answered  Mar- 
garet. "  Maybe  there  's  as  good  fish  in  the  say 
as  iver  was  caught,  but  I  don't  belave  it  all  the 
same." 

As  good  fish  in  the  sea !  The  wt)rds  recalled 
to  Margaret  the  nature  of  her  loss,  and  she  went 
on  with  her  work  in  silence. 

"What  — what  is  it,  Ezra?"  cried  Mrs.  Bil- 
kins, changing  color,  and  rising  hastily  from 
the  breakfast-table.  Her  first  thought  was  apo- 
plexy. 

There  sat  Mr.  Bilkins,  with  his  wig  pushed 
back  from  his  forehead,  and  his  eyes  fixed  va- 
cantly on  The  Weekly  Chronicle,  which  he  held 
out  at  arm's  length  before  him. 

"  Good  heavens,  Ezra !  what  is  the  matter  ? " 

Mr.  Bilkins  turned  his  eyes  upon  her  mechani- 
cally, as  if  he  were  a  great  wax-doll,  and  some- 
body had  pulled  his  wire. 

"  Can't  you  speak,  Ezra  ? " 


A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  95 

His  lips  opened,  and  moved  inarticulately ; 
then  he  pointed  a  rigid  finger,  in  the  manner  of 
a  guide-board,  at  a  paragraph  in  the  paper,  which 
he  held  up  for  Mrs.  Bilkins  to  read  over  his 
shoulder.  When  she  had  read  it  she  sunk  back 
into  her  chair  without  a  word,  and  the  two  sat 
contemplating  each  other  as  if  they  had  never 
met  before  in  this  world,  and  were  not  over- 
pleased  at  meeting. 

The  paragraph  which  produced  this  singular 
effect  on  the  aged  couple  occurred  at  the  end  of 
a  column  of  telegraph  despatches  giving  the  de- 
tails of  an  unimportant  engagement  that  had  just 
taken  place  between  one  of  the  blockading  squad- 
ron and  a  Confederate  cruiser.  The  engagement 
itself  does  not  concern  us,  but  this  item  from  the 
list  of  casualties  on  the  Union  side  has  a  direct 
bearing  on  our  narative  :  — 

"  Larry  O'Rouke,  seaman,  splinter  wound  in 
the  leg.     Not  serious." 

That  splinter  flew  far.  It  glanced  from  Mr. 
O'Rouke's  leg,  went  plumb  through  the  Bilkins 
mansion,  and  knocked  over  a  small  marble  slab 
in  the  Old  South  Burying-Ground. 

If  a  ghost  had  dropped  in  familiarly  to  break- 


96  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

fast,  the  constraint  and  consternation  of  the  Bi!i 
kins  family  could  not  have  been  greater.  How 
was  the  astounding  intelligence  to  be  broken  to 
Margaret  ?  Her  explosive  Irish  nature  made  the 
task  one  of  extreme  delicacy.  Mrs.  Bilkins  flatly 
declared  herself  incapable  of  undertal^mg  it.  Mr. 
Bilkins,  with  many  misgivings  as  to  his  fitness, 
assumed  the  duty  ;  for  it  would  ntsver  do  to  have 
the  news  sprung  upon  Margaret  suddenly  by 
people  outside. 

As  Mrs.  O'Rouke  was  clearing  away  the  break- 
fast things,  Mr.  Bilkins,  who  had  lingered  near 
the  window  with  the  newspaper  in  his  hand, 
coughed  once  or  twice  in  an  unnatural  way  to 
show  that  he  was  not  embarrassed,  and  began  to 
think  that  maybe  it  would  be  best  to  tell  Mar- 
garet after  dinner.  Mrs.  Bilkins  fathomed  his 
thought  with  that  intuition  which  renders  women 
terrible,  and  sent  across  the  room  an  eye-tele- 
gram to  this  effect,  "  Now  is  your  time." 

"  There  's  been  another  battle  down  South, 
Margaret,"  said  the  old  gentleman  presently, 
folding  up  the  paper  and  putting  it  in  his  pocket. 
^  A  sea-fight  this  time." 

"  Sure,  an'  they  're  alius  fightin'  down  there." 


A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  97 

"  But  not  always  with  so  little  damage.  There 
was  only  one  man  wounded  on  our  side." 

"  Pore  man !  It 's  sorry  we  oughter  be  for  his 
wife  an'  childer,  if  he  's  got  any." 

"  Not  badly  wounded,  you  will  understand, 
Margaret ;  not  at  all  seriously  wounded ;  only  a 
splinter  in  the  leg." 

"  Faith,  thin,  a  splinter  in  the  leg  is  no  pleas- 
ant thing  in  itself." 

"  A  mere  scratch,"  said  Mr.  Bilkins  lightly,  as 
if  he  were  constantly  in  the  habit  of  going  about 
with  a  splinter  in  his  own  leg,  and  found  it  rather 
agreeable.  "  The  odd  part  of  the  matter  is  the 
man's  first  name.     His  first  name  was  Larry." 

Margaret  nodded,  as  one  should  say.  There  's 
a  many  Larrys  in  the  world. 

"But  the  oddest  part  of  it,"  continued  Mr. 
Bilkins,  in  a  carelessly  sepulchral  voice,  "  is  the 
man's  last  name." 

Something  in  the  tone  of  his  voice  made  Mar- 
garet look  at  him,  and  something  in  the  expres- 
sion of  his  face  caused  the  blood  to  fly  from  Mar- 
garet's cheek. 

"  The  man's  last  name,"  she  repeated,  won- 
deringly. 


98  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

"  Yes,  his  last  name,  —  O'Rouke." 

"  D'  ye  mane  it?"  shrieked  Margaret,  — "  d' 
ye  mane  it  ?    Glory  to  God !    0  worra !  worra !  " 

"Well,  Ezra,"  said  Mrs.  Bilkins,  in  one  of 
those  spasms  of  base  ingratitude  to  which  even 
the  most  perfect  women  are  liable, "  you  've  made 
nice  work  of  it.  You  might  as  well  have  knocked 
her  down  with  an  axe !  " 

"But,  my  dear  —  " 

"  0  bother  !  —  my  smelling-bottle,  quick  !  — 
second  bureau  drawer,  —  left-hand  side." 

Joy  never  kills  ;  it  is  a  celestial  kind  of  hy- 
drogen of  which  it  seems  impossible  to  get  too 
much  at  one  inhalation.  In  an  hour  Margaret 
was  able  to  converse  with  comparative  calmness 
on  the  resuscitation  of  Larry  O'Rouke,  whom 
the  firing  of  a  cannon  had  brought  to  the  sur- 
face as  if  he  had  been  in  reality  a  drowned 
body. 

Now  that  the  whole  town  was  aware  of  Mr. 
O'Rouke's  fate,  his  friend  Mr.  Donnehugh  came 
forward  with  a  statement  that  would  have  been 
of  some  interest  at  an  earlier  period,  but  was  of 
no  service  as  matters  stood,  except  so  far  as  it 
assisted  in  removing  from  Mr.  Bilkins's  mind  a 


A    RIVERMOUTII    ROMANCE.  99 

passing  doubt  as  to  wliether  the  Larry  O'Rouke 
of  the  telegraphic  reports  was  Margaret's  scape- 
grace of  a  husband.  Mr.  Donnehugh  had  known 
all  along  that  O'Rouke  had  absconded  to  Boston 
by  a  night  train  and  enlisted  in  the  navy.  It 
was  the  possession  of  this  knowledge  that  had 
made  it  impossible  for  Mr.  Donnehugh  to  look  at 
Mr.  O'Rouke's  gravestone  without  grinning. 

At  Margaret's  request,  and  in  Margaret's 
name,  Mr.  Bilkins  wrote  three  or  four  letters  to 
O'Rouke,  and  finally  succeeded  in  extorting  an 
epistle  from  that  gentleman,  in  which  he  told 
Margaret  to  cheer  up,  that  his  fortune  was  as 
good  as  made,  and  that  the  day  would  come 
when  she  should  ride  through  the  town  in  her 
own  coach,  and  no  thanks  to  old  flint-head,  who 
pretended  to  be  so  fond  of  her.  Mr.  Bilkins  tried 
to  conjecture  who  was  meant  by  old  flint-head, 
but  was  obliged  to  give  it  up.  Mr.  O'Rouke 
furthermore  informed  Margaret  that  he  had  three 
hundred  dollars  prize-money  coming  to  him,  and 
broadly  intimated  that  when  he  got  home  he 
intended  to  have  one  of  the  most  extensive  blow- 
outs ever  witnessed  in  Rivermouth. 

"  Oche !  "  laughed  Margaret,  "  that 's  jist  Larry 


100  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

over  agin.     The  pore  lad  was  alius  full  of  his 
nonsense  an'  spirits." 

"  That  he  was,"  said  Mr.  Bilkins,  dryly. 

Content  with  the  fact  that  her  husband  was  in 
the  land  of  the  living,  Margaret  gave  herself 
no  trouble  over  the  separation.  O'Rouke  had 
shipped  for  three  years ;  one  third  of  his  term  of 
service  was  past,  and  two  years  more,  God  will- 
ing, would  see  him  home  again.  This  was  Mar- 
garet's view  of  it.  Mr.  Bilkins's  view  of  it  was 
not  so  cheerful.  The  prospect  of  Mr.  O'Rouke's 
ultimate  i^eturn  was  anything  but  enchanting. 
Mr.  Bilkins  was  by  no  means  disposed  to  kill  the 
fatted  calf.  He  would  much  rather  have  killed 
the  Prodigal  Son.  However,  there  was  always 
this  chance  :  he  might  never  come  back. 

The  tides  rose  and  fell  at  the  Rivermouth 
wharves  ;  the  summer  moonlight  and  the  winter 
snow,  in  turn,  bleached  its  quiet  streets  ;  and 
the  two  years  had  nearly  gone  by.  In  the 
mean  time  nothing  had  been  heard  of  O'Rouke. 
If  he  ever  received  the  five  or  six  letters  sent 
to  him,  he  did  not  fatigue  himself  by  answering 
them. 

"  Larry  's  all  right,"  said  hopeful  Margaret. 


A   RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  103 

"  If  any  liariim  had  come  to  the  gossoon,  we  'd 
have  knowed  it.  It 's  the  bad  news  that  travels 
fast." 

Mr.  Bilkins  was  not  so  positive  about  that.  It 
had  taken  a  whole  year  to  find  out  that  O'Roukc 
had  not  drowned  himself. 

The  period  of  Mr.  O'Rouke's  enlistment  had 
come  to  an  end.  Two  months  slipped  by,  and 
lie  had  neglected  to  brighten  Rivermouth  with 
his  presence.  There  were  many  things  that 
might  have  detained  him,  difficulties  in  getting 
his  prize-papers  or  in  drawing  his  pay  ;  but  there 
was  no  reason  why  he  might  not  have  written. 
The  days  were  beginning  to  grow  long  to  Mar- 
garet, and  vague  forebodings  of  misfortune  pos- 
sessed her. 

Perhaps  we  had  better  look  up  Mr.  O'Rouke. 

He  had  seen  some  rough  times,  during  those 
three  years,  and  some  harder  work  than  catching 
Gunners  at  the  foot  of  Anchor  Street,  or  setting 
out  crocuses  in  Mr.  Bilkins's  back  garden.  He 
had  seen  battles  and  shipwreck,  and  death  in 
many  guises  ;  but  they  had  taught  him  nothing, 
as  the  sequel  will  show.  With  liis  active  career 
in  the  navy  we  shall  not  trouble  ourftelves ;  we 


100  A    RIVERMOUTII    ROMANCE. 

take  him  up  at  a  date  a  little  prior  to  the  close 
of  Ms  term  of  service. 

Several  months  before,  he  had  been  transferred 
from  the  blockading  squadron  to  a  gun-boat  at- 
tached to  the  fleet  operating  against  the  forts  de- 
fending New  Orleans.  The  forts  had  fallen,  the 
fleet  had  passed  on  to  the  city,  and  Mr.  O'Rouke's 
ship  lay  off  in  the  stream,  binding  up  her  wounds. 
In  three  days  he  would  receive  his  discharge,  and 
the  papers  entitling  him  to  a  handsome  amount 
of  prize-money  in  addition  to  his  pay.  With 
noble  contempt  for  so  much  good  fortune,  Mr. 
O'Rouke  dropped  over  the  bows  of  the  gun-boat 
one  evening  and  managed  to  reach  the  levee. 
In  the  city  he  fell  in  with  some  soldiers,  and, 
being  of  a  convivial  nature,  caroused  with  them 
that  night,  and  next  day  enlisted  in  a  cavalry 
regiment. 

Desertion  in  the  face  of  the  enemy  —  for 
though  the  city  lay  under  Federal  guns,  it  was 
still  hostile  enough  —  involved  the  heaviest  pen- 
alties. O'Rouke  was  speedily  arrested  with  other 
deserters,  tried  by  court-martial,  and  sentenced 
to  death. 

The  intelligence  burst  like  a  shell  upon  the 


A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  103 

quiet  household  in  Anchor  Street,  listening  daily 
for  the  sound  of  Larry  O'Rouke's  footstep  on  the 
threshold.  It  was  a  heavy  load  for  Margaret  to 
bear,  after  all  those  years  of  patient  vigil.  But 
the  load  was  to  be  lightened  for  her.  In  consid- 
eration of  O'Rouke's  long  service,  and  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  his  desertion  so  near  the  expirar 
tion  of  his  time  was  an  absurdity,  the  Good  Pres- 
ident commuted  his  sentence  to  imprisonment 
for  life,  with  loss  of  prize-money  and  back  pay. 
Mr.  O'Rouke  was  despatched  North,  and  placed 
in  Moyamensing  Prison. 

If  joy  could  kill,  Margaret  would  have  been  a 
dead  woman  the  day  these  tidings  reached  River- 
mouth  ;  and  Mr.  Bilkins  himself  would  have  been 
in  a  critical  condition,  for,  though  he  did  not 
want  O'Rouke  shot  or  hanged,  he  was  delighted 
to  have  him  permanently  shelved. 

After  the  excitement  was  over,  and  this  is 
always  the  trying  time,  Margaret  accepted  the 
situation  philosophically. 

"  The  pore  lad  's  out  o'  harum's  raclie,  any 
way,"  she  reflected.  "  He  can't  be  gittin'  into 
hot  wather  now,  and  that 's  a  fact.  And  may- 
be after  awliiles  they  '11  let  him  go  agin.     They 


104  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

let  oat  murtherers  and  thaves  and  sich  like,  and 
Larry  's  done  no  hurt  to  nobody  but  hisself." 

Margaret  was  inclined  to  be  rather  severe  on 
President  Lincoln  for  taking  away  Larry's  prize- 
money.  The  impression  was  strong  on  her 
mind  that  the  money  went  into  Mr.  Lincoln's 
private  exchequer. 

"  I  would  n't  wonder  if  Misthress  Lincoln  had 
a  new  silk  gownd  or  two  this  fall,"  Margaret 
would  remark,  sarcastically. 

The  prison  rules  permitted  Mr.  O'Rouke  to  re- 
ceive periodical  communications  from  his  friends 
outside.  Once  every  quarter  Mr.  Bilkins  wrote 
him  a  letter,  and  in  the  interim  Margaret  kept 
him  supplied  with  those  doleful  popular  ballads, 
printed  on  broadsides,  which  one  sees  pinned  up 
for  sale  on  the  iron  railings  of  city  churchyards, 
and  seldom  anywhere  else.  They  seem  the  nat- 
ural exhalations  of  the  mould  and  pathos  of 
such  places,  but  we  have  a  suspicion  that  they 
are  written  by  sentimental  young  undertakers. 
Though  these  songs  must  have  been  a  solace  to 
Mr.  O'Rouke  in  his  captivity,  he  never  so  far 
forgot  himself  as  to  acknowledge  their  receipt. 
It  was  only  through  the  kindly  chaplain  of  the 


A    RIVERMOUTII    ROMANCB,  105 

prison  that  Margaret  was  now  and  then  advised 
of  the  well-being  of  her  husband. 

Towards  the  close  of  that  year  the  great 
O'Rouke  himself  did  condescend  to  write  one 
/otter.  As  this  letter  has  never  been  printed, 
and  as  it  is  the  only  specimen  extant  of  Mr. 
O'Rouke's  epistolary  manner,  we  lay  it  before 
the  reader  verbatim  et  liter alim :  — 

febiiary.     1864 
mi  belovid  wife 

fur  the  luv  of  God  smd  mee  pop  gose 

the  wezel.     yoiirs  till  deth 

larry  0  rouke 

"  Pop  goes  the  Weasel "  was  sent  to  him,  and 
Mr.  Bilkins  ingeniously  slipped  into  the  same 
envelope  "  Beware  of  the  Bowl,"  and  "  The 
Drunkard's  Death,"  two  spirited  compositions 
w^ell  calculated  to  exert  a  salutary  influence  over 
a  man  imprisoned  for  life. 

There  is  nothing  in  this  earthly  existence  so 
uncertain  as  what  seems  to  be  a  certainty.  To 
all  appearances,  the  world  outside  of  Moyamen 
sing  Prison  was  forever  a  closed  book  to  O'Rouke. 
But  the  Southern  Confederacy  collapsed,  the  Gen- 
eral Amnesty  Proclamation  was  issued,  cell  doors 
were  thrown  open  ;  and  one  afternoon  Mr.  Larry 

5* 


106  A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE. 

O'Rouke,  with  his  head  neatly  shaved,  walked 
into  the  Bilkins  kitchen  and  frightened  Margaret 
nearly  out  of  her  skin. 

Mr.  O'Rouke's  summing  up  of  his  case  was 
characteristic  :  "  I  've  bin  kilt  in  battle,  hanged 
by  the  coort-martial,  put  into  the  lock-up  for  life, 
and  here  I  am,  bedad,  not  a  ha'p'orth  the  worse 
for  it." 

None  the  worse  for  it,  certainly,  and  none  tlie 
better.  By  no  stretch  of  magical  fiction  can  we 
make  an  angel  of  him.  He  is  not  at  all  the 
material  for  an  apotheosis.  It  was  not  for  him 
to  reform  and  settle  down,  and  become  a  respect- 
able, oppressed  tax-payer.  His  conduct  in  River- 
mouth,  after  his  return,  was  a  repetition  of  his 
old  ways.  Margaret  all  but  broke  down  under 
the  tests  to  which  he  put  her  affections,  and 
came  at  last  to  wish  that  Larry  had  never  got 
out  of  Moyamensing  Prison. 

If  any  change  had  taken  place  in  Mr.  O'Rouke, 
it  showed  itself  in  occasional  fits  of  sullenness 
towards  Margaret.  It  was  in  one  of  these  moods 
that  he  slouched  his  hat  over  his  brows,  and  told 
her  she  need  n't  wait  dinner  for  him. 

It  will  be  a  cold  dinner,  if  Margaret  has  kept 


A    RIVERMOUTH    ROMANCE.  107 

it  waiting  ;  for  two  years  have  gone  by  since  that 
day,  and  O'Rouke  has  not  come  home. 

Possibly  he  is  off  on  a  whaling  voyage ;  pos- 
sibly the  swift  maelstrom  has  dragged  him  down  ; 
perhaps  he  is  lifting  his  hand  to  knock  at  the 
door  of  the  Bilkins  mansion  as  we  pen  these 
words.  But  Margaret  does  not  watch  for  him 
impatiently  any  more.  There  are  strands  of  gray 
in  her  black  hair.     She  has  had  her  romance. 


QUITE  SO. 


I. 


f\^  course  that  was  not  his  name.  Even  in 
^^  the  State  of  Maine,  where  it  is  still  a  cus- 
tom to  maim  a  child  for  life  by  christening  him 
Arioch  or  Shadrach  or  Ephraim,  nobody  would 
dream  of  calling  a  boy  "  Quite  So."  It  was 
merely  a  nickname  which  we  gave  him  in  camp  ; 
but  it  stuck  to  him  with  such  bur-like  tenacity, 
and  is  so  inseparable  from  my  memory  of  him, 
that  I  do  not  think  I  could  write  definitely  of 
John  Bladburn  if  I  were  to  call  him  anything 
but  "  Quite  So." 

It  was  one  night  shortly  after  the  first  battle 
of  Bull  Run.  The  Army  of  the  Potomac,  shat- 
tered, stunned,  and  forlorn,  was  back  in  its  old 
quarters  behind  the  earth-works.  The  melan- 
choly line  of  ambulances  bearing  our  wounded 


QUITE    SO.  109 

to  Washington  was  not  done  creeping  over  Long 
Bridge ;  the  blue  smocks  and  the  gray  still  lay 
in  windrows  on  the  field  of  Manassas ;  and  the 
gloom  that  weighed  down  our  hearts  was  like 
the  fog  that  stretched  along  the  bosom  of  the 
Potomac,  and  infolded  the  valley  of  the  Shenan- 
doah. A  drizzling  rain  had  set  in  at  twilight, 
and,  growing  bolder  with  the  darkness,  was  beat- 
ing a  dismal  tattoo  on  the  tent,  —  the  tent  of 
Mess  6,  Company  A,  -th  Regiment  N.  Y.  Vol- 
unteers. Our  mess,  consisting  originally  of  eight 
men,  was  reduced  to  four.  Little  Billy,  as  one 
of  the  boys  grimly  remarked,  had  concluded  to 
remain  at  Manassas ;  Corporal  Steele  we  had  to 
leave  at  Fairfax  Court-House,  shot  through  the 
hip ;  Hunter  and  Suydam  we  had  said  good  by 
to  that  afternoon.  "  Tell  Johnny  Reb,"  says 
Hunter,  lifting  up  the  leather  side-piece  of  the 
ambulance,  "  that  I  '11  be  back  again  as  soon  as 
I  get  a  new  leg."  But  Suydam  said  nothing; 
he  only  unclosed  his  eyes  languidly  and  smiled 
farewell  to  us. 

The  four  of  us  who  were  left  alive  and  unhurt 
that  shameful  July  day  sat  gloomily  smoking  our 
brier-wood  pipes,  thinking  our  thoughts,  and  lis- 


110  QUITE    SO. 

tening  to  the  rain  pattering  against  the  canvas. 
That,  and  the  occasional  whine  of  a  hungry  cur, 
foraging  on  the  outskirts  of  the  camp  for  a  stray 
bone,  alone  broke  the  silence,  save  when  a  vi- 
cious  drop  of  rain  detached  itself  meditatively 
from  the  ridge-pole  of  the  tent,  and  fell  upon 
the  wick  of  our  tallow  candle,  making  it  "  cuss," 
as  Ned  Strong  described  it.  The  candle  was  in 
the  midst  of  one  of  its  most  profane  fits  when 
Blakely,  knocking  the  ashes  from  his  pipe  and  ad- 
dressing no  one  in  particular,  but  giving  breath, 
unconsciously  as  it  were,  to  the  result  of  his  cogi- 
tations, observed  that  "  it  was  considerable  of  a 
fizzle." 

"  The  '  on  to  Riclmiond '  business  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  I  wonder  what  they  '11  do  about  it  over  yon- 
der," said  Curtis,  pointing  over  his  right  shoul- 
der. By  "  over  yonder  "  he  meant  the  North  in 
general  and  Massachusetts  especially.  Curtis 
was  a  Boston  boy,  and  his  sense  of  locality  was 
so  strong  that,  during  all  his  wanderings  in  Vir- 
ginia, I  do  not  believe  there  was  a  moment,  day 
or  night,  when  he  could  not  have  made  a  bee-line 
for  Faneuil  Hall. 


QUITE    SO.  m 

"  Do  about  it  ?  "  cried  Strong.  "  They  '11 
make  about  two  hundred  thousand  blue  flannel 
trousers  and  send  them  along,  each  pair  with  a 
man  in  it,  —  all  the  short  men  in  the  long  trous- 
ers, and  all  the  tall  men  in  the  short  ones,''  he 
added,  ruefully  contemplating  his  own  leg-gear, 
which  scarcely  reached  to  his  ankles. 

"  That 's  so,"  said  Blakely.  "  Just  now,  when 
I  was  tackling  the  commissary  for  an  extra 
candle,  I  saw  a  crowd  of  new  fellows  drawing 
blankets." 

"  I  say  there,  drop  that !  "  cried  Strong.  "  All 
right,  sir,  did  n't  know  it  was  you,"  he  added 
hastily,  seeing  it  was  Lieutenant  Haines  who  had 
thrown  back  the  flap  of  the  tent,  and  let  in  a 
gust  of  wind  and  rain  that  threatened  the  most 
serious  bronchial  consequences  to  our  discon- 
tented tallow  dip. 

"  You  're  to  bunk  in  here,"  said  the  lieuten- 
ant, speaking  to  some  one  outside.  The  some 
one  stepped  in,  and  Haines  vanished  in  the  dark- 
ness. 

When  Strong  had  succeeded  in  restoring  the 
candle  to  consciousness,  the  light  fell  upon  a  tall, 
shy-looking  man  of  about  thirty-five,  with  long, 


112  QUITE    SO. 

haj-colored  beard  and  mustache,  upon  which  the 
rain-drops  stood  in  clusters,  like  the  night-dew 
on  patches  of  cobweb  in  a  meadow.  It  was  an 
honest  face,  with  unworldly  sort  of  blue  eyes, 
that  looked  out  from  under  the  broad  visor  of  the 
infantry  cap.  With  a  deferential  glance  towards 
us,  the  new-comer  unstrapped  his  knapsack, 
spread  his  blanket  over  it,  and  sat  down  un- 
obtrusively. 

"  Rather  damp  night  out,"  remarked  Blakely, 
whose  strong  hand  was  supposed  to  be  conver- 
sation. 

"  Quite  so,"  replied  the  stranger,  not  curtly, 
but  pleasantly,  and  with  an  air  as  if  he  had  said 
all  there  was  to  be  said  about  it. 

"  Come  from  the  North  recently  ?  "  inquired 
Blakely,  after  a  pause. 

"  Yes." 

"  From  any  place  in  particular  ?  " 

"  Maine." 

"  People  considerably  stirred  up  down  there  ?  " 
continued  Blakely,  determined  not  to  give  up. 

"  Quite  so." 

Blakely  threw  a  puzzled  look  over  the  tent, 
and  seeing  Ned  Strong  on  the  broad  grin,  frowne(3 


QUITE    SO.  113 

severely.    Strong  instantly  assumed  an  abstracted 
air,  and  began  humming  softly, 

**  I  wish  I  was  in  Dixie." 

"  The  State  of  Maine,"  observed  Blakely,  with 
a  certain  defiance  of  manner  not  at  all  necessary 
in  discussing  a  geographical  question,  "is  a 
pleasant  State." 

"  In  summer,"  suggested  the  stranger. 

"  In  summer,  I  mean,"  returned  Blakely  with 
animation,  thinking  he  had  broken  the  ice. 
"  Cold  as  blazes  in  winter,  though,  —  is  n't  it  ?  " 

The  new  recruit  merely  nodded. 

Blakely  eyed  the  man  homicidally  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then,  smiling  one  of  those  smiles  of 
simulated  gayety  which  the  novelists  inform  us 
are  more  tragic  than  tears,  turned  upon  him  with 
withering  irony. 

"  Trust  you  left  the  old  folks  pretty  comfort- 
able ? " 

".Dead." 

"  The  old  folks  dead  !  " 

"  Quite  so." 

Blakely  made  a  sudden  dive  for  his  blanket, 
tucked  it  around  him  with  painful  precision,  and 
was  heard  no  more. 


114  QUITE    SO. 

Just  then  the  bugle  sounded  "  lights  out,"  — 
bugle  answering  bugle  in  far-off  camps.  When 
our  not  elaborate  night-toilets  were  complete, 
Strong  threw  somebody  else's  old  boot  at  the 
candle  with  infallible  aim,  and  darkness  took 
possession  of  the  tent.  Ned,  who  lay  on  my 
left,  presently  reached  over  to  me,  and  whis- 
pered, "  I  say,  our  friend  '  quite  so  '  is  a  garru- 
lous old  boy !  He  '11  talk  himself  to  death  some 
of  these  odd  times,  if  he  is  n't  careful.  How  he 
did  run  on  !  " 

The  next  morning,  when  I  opened  my  eyes,  the 
new  member  of  Mess  6  was  sitting  on  his  knap- 
sack, combing  his  blond  beard  with  a  horn  comb. 
He  nodded  pleasantly  to  me,  and  to  each  of  the 
boys  as  they  woke  up,  one  by  one.  Blakely  did 
not  appear  disposed  to  renew  the  animated  con- 
versation of  the  previous  night ;  but  while  he 
was  gone  to  make  a  requisition  for  what  was  in 
pure  sarcasm  called  coffee,  Curtis  ventured  to 
ask  the  man  his  name. 

"  Bladburn,  John,"  was  the  reply. 

"  That  's  rather  an  unwieldy  name  for  every- 
day use,"  put  in  Strong.  "  If  it  would  n't  hurt 
your  feelings,  I'd  like  to  call  you  Quite  So, — 


QUITE    SO.  115 

for  short.     Don't  say  no,  if  you  don't  like  it.     Is 
it  agreeable  ? " 

Bladburn  gave  a  little  laugh,  all  to  himself, 
seemingly,  and  was  about  to  say,  "  Quite  so," 
when  he  caught  at  the  words,  blushed  like  a  girl, 
and  nodded  a  sunny  assent  to  Strong.  From  that 
day  until  the  end,  the  sobriquet  clung  to  him. 

The  disaster  at  Bull  Run  was  followed,  as  the 
reader  knows,  by  a  long  period  of  masterly  in- 
activity, so  far  as  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was 
concerned.  McDowell,  a  good  soldier  but  un- 
lucky, retired  to  Arlington  Heights,  and  Mc- 
Clellan,  who  had  distinguished  himself  in  Western 
Yirginia,  took  command  of  the  forces  in  front  of 
Washing*ton,  and  bent  his  energies  to  reorganiz- 
ing the  demoralized  troops.  It  was  a  dreary 
time  to  the  people  of  the  North,  who  looked 
fatuously  from  week  to  week  for  "  the  faU  of 
Richmond  "  ;  and  it  was  a  dreary  time  to  the 
denizens  of  that  vast  city  of  tents  and  forts 
which  stretched  in  a  semicircle  before  the  be- 
leaguered Capitol,  —  so  tedious  and  soul-wearing 
a  time  that  the  hardships  of  forced  marches  and 
the  horrors  of  battle  became  desirable  things  to 
them. 


116  QUITE    SO. 

Roll-call  morning  and  evening,  guard-duty, 
dress-parades,  an  occasional  reconnoissance,  dom- 
inos,  wrestling-matches,  and  such  rude  games 
as  could  be  carried  on  in  camp  made  up  the  sum 
of  our  lives.  The  arrival  of  the  mail  with  letters 
and  papers  from  home  was  the  event  of  the  day. 
We  noticed  that  Bladburn  neither  wrote  nor 
received  any  letters.  When  the  rest  of  the  boys 
were  scribbling  away  for  dear  life,  with  drum- 
heads and  knapsacks  and  cracker-boxes  for 
writing-desks,  he  would  sit  serenely  smoking  his 
pipe,  but  looking  out  on  us  through  rings  of  smoke 
with  a  face  expressive  of  the  tenderest  interest- 

"  Look  here.  Quite  So,"  Strong  would  say, 
"  the  mail-bag  closes  in  half  an  hour.  Ain't  you 
going  to  write  ?  " 

"  I  believe  not  to-day,"  Bladburn  would  reply, 
as  if  he  had  written  yesterday,  or  would  write  to' 
morrow  :  but  he  never  wrote. 

He  had  become  a  great  favorite  with  us,  and 
with  all  the  officers  of  the  regiment.  He  talked 
less  than  any  man  I  ever  knew,  but  there  was 
nothing  sinister  or  sullen  in  his  reticence.  It 
was  sunshine,  —  warmth  and  brightness,  but  no 
voice.     Unassuming  and  modest  to  the  verge  of 


QUITE    SO.  117 

shyness,  he  impressed  every  one  as  a  man  of 
singular  pluck  and  nerve. 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  Curtis  to  me  one  day, 
"  that  that  fellow  Quite  So  is  clear  grit,  and 
when  we  come  to  close  quarters  with  our  Pal- 
metto brethren  over  yonder,  he  '11  do  something 
devilish?" 

"  What  makes  you  think  so  ?  " 

"  Well,  nothing  quite  explainable ;  the  exas- 
perating coolness  of  the  man,  as  much  as  any- 
thing. This  morning  the  boys  were  teasing 
Muffin  Fan  "  [a  small  mulatto  girl  who  used  to 
bring  muffins  into  camp  three  times  a  week,  —  at 
the  peril  of  her  life !]  "  and  Jemmy  Blunt  of 
Company  K  —  you  know  him  —  was  rather  rough 
on  the  girl,  when  Quite  So,  who  had  been  reading 
under  a  tree,  shut  one  finger  in  his  book,  walked 
over  to  where  the  boys  were  skylarking,  and  with 
the  smile  of  a  juvenile  angel  on  his  face  lifted 
Jemmy  out  of  that  and  set  him  down  gently  in 
front  of  his  own  tent.  There  Blunt  sat  speech- 
less, staring  at  Quite  So,  who  was  back  again 
under  the  tree,  pegging  away  at  his  little  Latin 
grammar." 

That  Latin  grammar !     He  always  had  it  about 


118  QUITE    SO. 

him,  reading  it  or  turning  over  its  dog's-eared 
pages  at  odd  intervals  and  in  out-of-the-way 
places.  Half  a  dozen  times  a  day  he  would  draw 
it  out  from  the  bosom  of  his  blouse,  which  had* 
taken  the  shape  of  the  book  just  over  the  left 
breast,  look  at  it  as  if  to  assure  himself  it  was  all 
right,  and  then  put  the  thing  back.  At  night 
the  volume  lay  beneath  his  pillow.  The  first 
thing  in  the  morning,  before  he  was  well  awake, 
his  hand  would  go  groping  instinctively  under 
his  knapsack  in  search  of  it. 

A  devastating  curiosity  seized  upon  us  boys 
concerning  that  Latin  grammar,  for  we  had  dis- 
covered the  nature  of  the  book.  Strong  wanted 
to  steal  it  one  night,  but  concluded  not  to.  "  In 
the  first  place,"  reflected  Strong,  "  I  have  n't  the 
heart  to  do  it,  and  in  the  next  place  I  have  n't 
the  moral  courage.  Quite  So  would  placidly  break 
every  bone  in  my  body."  And  I  believe  Strong 
was  not  far  out  of  the  way. 

Sometimes  I  was  vexed  with  myself  for  allow- 
ing this  tall,  simple-hearted  country  fellow  to 
puzzle  me  so  much.  And  yet,  was  he  a  simple- 
hearted  country  fellow  ?  City  bred  he  certainly 
was  not ;  but  his  manner,  in  spite  of  his  awkward- 


QUITE    SO.  119 

ness,  had  an  indescribable  air  of  refinement.  Now 
and  then,  too,  he  dropped  a  word  or  a  phrase  that 
showed  his  familiarity  with  unexpected  lines  of 
reading.  "  The  other  day,"  said  Curtis,  with  the 
shghtest  elevation  of  eyebrow,  "  he  had  the  cheek 
to  correct  my  Latin  for  me."  In  short.  Quite  So 
was  a  daily  problem  to  the  members  of  Mess  6. 
Whenever  he  was  absent,  and  Blakely  and  Curtis 
and  Strong  and  I  got  together  in  the  tent,  we 
discussed  him,  evolving  various  theories  to  explain 
why  he  never  wrote  to  anybody  and  why  nobody 
ever  wrote  to  him.  Had  the  man  committed 
some  terrible  crime,  and  fled  to  the  army  to  hide 
his  guilt  ?  Blakely  suggested  that  he  must  have 
murdered  "  the  old  folks."  What  did  he  mean 
by  eternally  conning  that  tattered  Latin  gram- 
mar ?  And  was  his  name  Bladburn,  anyhow  ? 
Even  his  imperturbable  amiability  became  suspi- 
cious. And  then  his  frightful  reticence  !  If  he 
was  the  victim  of  any  deep  grief  or  crushing 
calamity,  why  did  n't  he  seem  unhappy  ?  What 
business  had  he  to  be  cheerful  ? 

"  It 's  my  opinion,"  said  Strong,  "  that  he  's  a 
rival  Wandering  Jew  ;  the  original  Jacobs,  you 
know,  was  a  dark  fellow." 


120  QUITE    SO. 

Blakely  inferred  from  something  Bladburn  had 
said,  or  something  he  had  not  said,  —  which  was 
more  likely,  —  that  he  had  been  a  schoolmaster 
at  some  period  of  his  life. 

"  Schoolmaster  be  hanged !  "  was  Strong's 
comment.  "  Can  you  fancy  a  schoolmaster  going 
about  conjugating  baby  verbs  out  of  a  dratted 
little  spelling-book  ?  No,  Quite  So  has  evidently 
been  a  —  a  —  Blest  if  I  can  imagine  what  he  's 
been !  " 

Whatever  John  Bladburn  had  been,  he  was  a 
lonely  man.  Whenever  I  want  a  type  of  perfect 
human  isolation,  I  shall  think  of  him,  as  he  was 
in  those  days,  moving  remote,  self-contained,  and 
alone  in  the  midst  of  two  hundred  thousand 
men. 


QUITE    SO.  121 


n. 


The  Indian  summer,  with  its  infinite  beauty 
and  tenderness,  came  like  a  reproach  that  year 
to  Virginia.  The  foliage,  touched  here  and  there 
with  prismatic  tints,  drooped  motionless  in  the 
golden  haze.  The  delicate  Virginia  creeper  was 
almost  minded  to  put  forth  its  scarlet  buds 
again.  No  wonder  the  lovely  phantom  —  this 
dusky  Southern  sister  of  the  pale  Northern  June 
—  lingerea  not  long  with  us,  but,  filling  the  once 
peaceful  glens  and  valleys  with  her  pathos,  stole 
away  rebukefully  before  the  savage  enginery  of 
man. 

The  preparations  that  had  been  going  on  for 
months  in  arsenals  and  foundries  at  the  North 
were  nearly  completed.  For  weeks  past  the  air 
had  been  filled  with  rumors  of  an  advance ;  but 
the  rumor  of  to-day  refuted  the  rumor  of  yester- 
day, and  the  Grand  Army  did  not  move.  Heint- 
zelman's  corps  was  constantly  folding  its  tents, 
like  the  Arabs,  and  as  silently  stealing  away  ; 


122  QUITE    SO. 

but  somehow  it  was  always  in  the  same  place  the 
next  morning.  One  day,  at  length,  orders  came 
down  for  our  brigade  to  move. 

"  We  're  going  to  Richmond,  boys  !  "  shouted 
Strong,  thrusting  his  head  in  at  the  tent ;  and 
we  all  cheered  and  waved  our  caps  like  mad. 
You  see.  Big  Bethel  and  Bull  Run  and  Ball's 
Bluff  (the  bloody  B's,  as  we  used  to  call  them,) 
had  n't  taught  us  any  better  sense. 

Rising  abruptly  from  the  plateau,  to  the  left 
of  our  encampment,  was  a  tall  hill  covered  with 
a  stunted  growth  of  red-oak,  persimmon,  and 
chestnut.  The  night  before  we  struck  tents  I 
climbed  up  to  the  crest  to  take  a  parting  look  at 
a  spectacle  which  custom  had  not  been  able  to 
rob  of  its  enchantment.  There,  at  my  feet,  and 
extending  miles  and  miles  away,  lay  the  camps 
of  the  Grand  Army,  with  its  camp-fires  reflected 
luridly  against  the  sky.  Thousands  of  lights 
were  twinkling  in  every  direction,  some  nestling 
in  the  valley,  some  like  fire-flies  beating  their 
wings  and  palpitating  among  the  trees,  and 
others  stretching  in  parallel  lines  and  curves,  like 
the  street-lamps  of  a  city.  Somewhere,  far  off, 
a  band  was  playing,  at  intervals  it  seemed  ;  and 


QUITE    SO.  123 

now  and  then,  nearer  to,  a  silvery  strain  from  a 
bugle  shot  sharply  up  through  the  night,  and 
seemed  to  lose  itself  like  a  rocket  among  the 
stars,  —  the  patient,  untroubled  stars.  Suddenly 
a  hand  was  laid  upon  my  arm. 

"  I  'd  like  to  say  a  word  to  you,"  said  Blad- 
burn. 

With  a  little  start  of  surprise,  I  made  room 
for  him  on  the  fallen  tree  where  I  was  seated. 

"  I  may  n't  get  another  chance,"  he  said. 
"  You  and  the  boys  have  been  very  kind  to  me, 
kinder  than  I  deserve  ;  but  sometimes  I  've 
fancied  that  my  not  saying  anything  about  my- 
self had  given  you  the  idea  that  all  was  not  right 
in  my  past.  I  want  to  say  that  I  came  down  to 
Virginia  with  a  clean  record." 

"  We  never  really  doubted  it,  Bladburn." 

"  If  I  did  n't  write  home,"  he  continued,  "  it 
was  because  I  had  n't  any  home,  neither  kith 
nor  kin.  When  I  said  the  old  folks  were  dead, 
I  said  it.  Am  I  boring  you  ?  If  I  thought  I 
was  —  " 

"  No,  Bladburn.  I  have  often  wanted  you  to 
talk  to  me  about  yourself,  not  from  idle  curiosity, 
I  trust,  but  because  I  liked  you  that  rainy  night 


124  QUITE    SO. 

when  you  came  to  camp,  and  have  gone  on  liking 
you  ever  since.  This  is  n't  too  much  to  say, 
when  Heaven  only  knows  how  soon  I  may  be 
past  saying  it  or  you  listening  to  it." 

"  That 's  it,"  said  Bladburn,  hurriedly, "  that 's 
why  I  want  to  talk  with  you.  I  've  a  fancy  that 
I  sha'  n't  come  out  of  our  first  battle." 

The  words  gave  me  a  queer  start,  for  I  had 
been  trying  several  days  to  throw  off  a  similar 
presentiment  concerning  him,  —  a  foolish  pre- 
sentiment that  grew  out  of  a  dream. 

"  In  case  anything  of  that  kind  turns  up,"  he 
continued,  "  I  'd  like  you  to  have  my  Latin  gram- 
mar here,  —  you  've  seen  me  reading  it.  You 
might  stick  it  away  in  a  bookcase,  for  the  sake 
of  old  times.  It  goes  against  me  to  think  of  it 
falling  into  rough  hands  or  being  kicked  about 
camp  and  trampled  under  foot." 

He  was  drumming  softly  with  his  fingers  on 
the  volume  in  the  bosom  of  his  blouse. 

"  I  did  n't  intend  to  speak  of  this  to  a  living 
soul,"  he  went  on,  motioning  me  not  to  answer 
him ;  "  but  something  took  hold  of  me  to-night 
and  made  me  follow  you  up  here.  Perhaps  if  I 
told  you  all,  you  would  be  the  more  willing  to 


QUITE    SO.  125 

look  after  the  little  book  in  case  it  goes  ill  with 
me.  When  the  war  broke  out  I  was  teaching 
school  down  in  Maine,  in  the  same  village  where 
my  father  was  schoolmaster  before  me.  The  old 
man  when  he  died  left  me  quite  alone.  I  lived 
pretty  much  by  myself,  having  no  interests  out- 
side of  the  district  school,  wliich  seemed  in  a 
manner  my  personal  property.  Eight  years  ago 
last  spring  a  new  pupil  was  brought  to  the 
school,  a  slight  slip  of  a  girl,  with  a  sad  kind 
of  face  and  quiet  ways.  Perhaps  it  was  because 
she  was  n't  very  strong,  and  perhaps  because  she 
was  n't  used  over  well  by  those  who  had  charge 
of  her,  or  perhaps  it  was  because  my  life  was 
lonely,  that  my  heart  warmed  to  the  child.  It 
all  seems  like  a  dream  now,  since  that  April 
morning  when  little  Mary  stood  in  front  of  my 
desk  with  her  pretty  eyes  looking  down  bashfully 
and  her  soft  hair  falling  over  her  face.  One  day 
I  look  up,  and  six  years  have  gone  by,  —  as  they 
go  by  in  dreams,  —  and  among  the  scholars  is  a 
tall  girl  of  sixteen,  with  serious,  womanly  eyes 
which  I  cannot  trust  myself  to  look  upon.  The 
old  life  has  come  to  an  end.  The  child  has  be- 
come a  woman  and  can  teach  the  master  now. 


126  QUITE    SO. 

So  help  me  Heaven,  I  did  n't  know  that  I  loved 
her  until  that  day  ! 

^'  Long  after  the  children  had  gone  home  I  sat 
in  the  school-room  with  my  face  resting  on  my 
hands.  There  was  her  desk,  the  afternoon  shad- 
ows falling  across  it.  It  never  looked  empty  and 
cheerless  before.  I  went  and  stood  by  the  low 
chair,  as  I  had  stood  hundreds  of  times.  On  the 
desk  was  a  pile  of  books,  ready  to  be  taken  away, 
and  among  the  rest  a  small  Latin  grammar  which 
we  had  studied  together.  What  little  despairs 
and  triumphs  and  happy  hours  were  associated 
with  it !  I  took  it  up  curiously,  as  if  it  were 
some  gentle  dead  thing,  and  turned  over  the 
pages,  and  could  hardly  see  them.  Turning  the 
pages,  idly  so,  I  came  to  a  leaf  on  which  some- 
thing was  written  with  ink,  in  the  familiar  girl- 
ish hand.  It  was  only  the  words  '  Dear  John,' 
through  which  she  had  drawn  two  hasty  pencil 
lines  —  I  wish  she  had  n't  drawn  those  lines  !  " 
added  Bladburn,  under  his  breath. 

He  was  silent  for  a  minute  or  two,  looking  off 
towards  the  camps,  where  the  lights  were  fading 
out  one  by  one. 

"  I  had  no  right  to  go  and  love  Mary.     I  was 


QUITE    SO.  127 

twice  her  age,  an  awkward,  unsocial  man,  that 
would  have  blighted  her  youth.  I  was  as  wrong 
as  wrong  can  be.  But  I  never  meant  to  tell  her. 
I  locked  the  grammar  in  my  desk  and  the  secret 
in  my  heart  for  a  year.  I  could  n't  bear  to  meet 
her  in  the  village,  and  kept  away  from  every 
place  where  she  was  likely  to  be.  Then  she  came 
to  me,  and  sat  down  at  my  feet  penitently,  just 
as  she  used  to  do  when  she  was  a  child,  and 
asked  what  she  had  done  to  anger  me ;  and  then, 
Heaven  forgive  me !  I  told  her  all,  and  asked  her 
if  she  could  say  with  her  lips  the  words  she  had 
written,  and  she  nestled  in  my  arms  all  a  trem- 
bling like  a  bird,  and  said  them  over  and  over 
again. 

"  When  Mary's  family  heard  of  our  engage- 
ment, there  was  trouble.  They  looked  higher 
for  Mary  than  a  middle-aged  schoolmaster.  No 
blame  to  them.  They  forbade  me  the  house,  her 
uncles ;  but  we  met  in  the  village  and  at  the 
neighbors'  houses,  and  I  was  happy,  knowing  she 
loved  me.  Matters  were  in  this  state  when  the 
war  came  on.  I  had  a  strong  call  to  look  after 
the  old  flag,  and  I  hung  my  head  that  day  when 
the  company  raised  in  our  village  marched  by 


128  QUITE    SO. 

the  school-house  to  the  raih'oad  station ;  but  I 
could  n't  tear  myseK  away.  About  this  time  the 
minister's  son,  who  had  been  away  to  college, 
came  to  the  village.  He  met  Mary  here  and 
there,  and  they  became  great  friends.  He  was 
a  likely  fellow,  near  her  own  age,  and  it  was 
natural  they  should  like  one  another.  Sometimes 
I  winced  at  seeing  him  made  free  of  the  home 
from  which  I  was  shut  out ;  then  I  would  open 
the  grammar  at  the  leaf  where  '  Dear  John '  was 
written  up  in  the  corner,  and  my  trouble  was 
gone.  Mary  was  sorrowful  and  pale  these  days, 
and  I  think  her  people  were  worrying  her. 

"  It  was  one  evening  two  or  three  days  before 
we  got  the  news  of  Bull  Run.  I  had  gone  down 
to  the  burying-ground  to  trim  the  spruce  hedge 
set  round  the  old  man's  lot,  and  was  just  step- 
ping into  the  enclosure,  when  I  heard  voices 
from  the  opposite  side.  One  was  Mary's,  and 
the  other  I  knew  to  be  young  Marston's,  the 
minister's  son.  I  did  n't  mean  to  listen,  but 
what  Mary  was  saying  struck  me  dumb.  We 
must  never  meet  again,  she  was  saying  in  a  wild 
way.  We  must  sap  good  hy  here^  forever, — 
good  by,  good  hy  I     And  I  could  hear  her  sob- 


QUITE    SO.  129 

bing.  Then,  presently,  she  said,  hurriedly,  iV?>, 
no ;  my  hand,  not  my  lips  I  Then  it  seemed  he 
kissed  her  hands,  and  the  two  parted,  one  going 
towards  the  parsonage,  and  the  other  out  by  the 
gate  near  where  I  stood. 

"  I  don't  know  how  long  I  stood  there,  but  the 
night-dews  had  wet  me  to  the  bone  when  I  stole 
out  of  the  graveyard  and  across  the  road  to  the 
school-house.  1  unlocked  the  door,  and  took  the 
Latin  grammar  from  the  desk  and  hid  it  in  my 
bosom.  There  was  not  a  sound  or  a  light  any- 
where as  I  walked  out  of  the  village.  And  now," 
said  Bladburn,  rising  suddenly  from  the  tree- 
trunk,  "  if  the  little  book  ever  falls  in  your  way, 
won't  you  see  that  it  comes  to  no  harm,  for  my 
sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  little  woman  who 
was  true  to  me  and  did  n't  love  me  ?  Wher- 
ever she  is  to-night,  God  bless  her ! " 

As  we  descended  to  camp  with  our  arms  rest- 
ing on  each  other's  shoulder,  the  watch-fires  were 
burning  low  in  the  valleys  and  along  the  hill- 
sides, and  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach  the  silent 
tents  lay  bleaching  in  the  moonlight. 


130  QUITE    SO. 


III. 


We  imagined  that  the  throwing  forward  of  our 
brigade  was  the  initial  movement  of  a  general 
advance  of  the  army  ;  but  that,  as  the  reader 
will  remember,  did  not  take  place  until  the  follow- 
ing March.  The  Confederates  had  fallen  back  to 
Centreville  without  firing  a  shot,  and  the  National 
troops  were  in  possession  of  Lewinsville,  Vienna, 
and  Fairfax  Court-House.  Our  new  position  was 
nearly  identical  with  that  which  we  had  occupied 
on  the  night  previous  to  the  battle  of  Bull  Run, 
—  on  the  old  turnpike  road  to  Manassas,  where 
the  enemy  was  supposed  to  be  in  great  force. 
With  a  field-glass  we  could  see  the  Rebel  pickets 
moving  in  a  belt  of  woodland  on  our  right,  and 
morning  and  evening  we  heard  the  spiteful  roll 
of  their  snare-drums. 

Those  pickets  soon  became  a  nuisance  to  us. 
Hardly  a  night  passed  but  they  fired  upon  our 
outposts,  so  far  with  no  harmful  result ;  but  after 
a  while  it  grew  to  be  a  serious  matter.     The 


QUITE    SO.  131 

Rebels  would  crawl  out  on  all-fours  from  the 
wood  into  a  field  covered  with  underbrush,  and 
lie  there  in  the  dark  for  hours,  waiting  for  a  shot. 
Then  our  men  took  to  the  rifle-pits,  — pits  ten  or 
twelve  feet  long  by  four  or  five  deep,  with  the 
loose  earth  banked  up  a  few  inches  high  on  the 
exposed  sides.  All  the  pits  bore  names,  more  or 
less  felicitous,  by  which  they  were  known  to  their 
transient  tenants.  One  was  called  "  The  Pepper- 
Box,"  another  "  Uncle  Sam's  Well,"  another 
"  The  Reb-Trap,"  and  another,  I  am  constrained 
to  say,  was  named  after  a  not  to  be  mentioned 
tropical  locality.  Though  this  rude  sort  of 
nomenclature  predominated,  there  was  no  lack 
of  softer  titles,  such  as  "  Fortress  Matilda  "  and 
"  Castle  Mary,"  and  one  had,  though  unintention- 
ally, a  literary  flavor  to  it,  "  Blair's  Grave," 
which  was  not  popularly  considered  as  reflecting 
unpleasantly  on  Nat  Blair,  who  had  assisted  in 
making  the  excavation. 

Some  of  the  regiment  had  discovered  a  field  of 
late  corn  in  the  neighborhood,  and  used  to  boil  a 
few  ears  every  day,  while  it  lasted,  for  the  boys 
detailed  on  the  night-picket.  The  corn-cobs  were 
always  scrupulously  preserved  and  mounted  on 


132  QUITE    SO. 

the  parapets  of  the  pits.  Whenever  a  Rebel  shot 
carried  away  one  of  these  barbette  guns,  there 
was  swearing  in  that  particular  trench.  Strong, 
who  was  very  sensitive  to  this  kind  of  disaster, 
was  complaining  bitterly  one  morning,  because 
he  had  lost  three  "  pieces  "  the  night  before. 

"  There 's  Quite  So,  now,"  said  Strong,  "  when 
a  Minie-ball  comes  ping!  and  knocks  one  of  his 
guns  to  flinders,  he  merely  smiles,  and  does  n't 
at  all  see  the  degradation  of  the  thing." 

Poor  Bladburn!  As  I  watched  him  day  by 
day  going  about  his  duties,  in  his  shy,  cheery 
way,  with  a  smile  for  every  one  and  not  an  extra 
word  for  anybody,  it  was  hard  to  believe  he  was 
the  same  man  who,  that  night  before  we  broke 
camp  by  the  Potomac,  had  poured  out  to  me  the 
story  of  his  love  and  sorrow  in  words  that  burned 
in  my  memory. 

While  Strong  was  speaking,  Blakely  lifted 
aside  the  flap  of  the  tent  and  looked  in  on  us. 

"  Boys,  Quite  So  was  hurt  last  night,"  he 
said,  with  a  white  tremor  to  his  lip. 

"  What !  " 

"  Shot  on  picket." 

"  Why,  he  was  in  the  pit  next  to  mine,"  cried 
Strong. 


QUITE    SO.  133 

*' Badly  hurt?'' 

"  Badly  hurt." 

I  knew  he  was ;  I  need  not  have  asked  the 
question.  He  never  meant  to  go  back  to  New 
England ! 

Bladburn  was  lying  on  the  stretcher  in  the 
hospital-tent.  The  surgeon  had  knelt  down  by 
him,  and  was  carefully  cutting  away  the  bosom 
of  his  blouse.  The  Latin  grammar,  stained  and 
torn,  slipped,  and  fell  to  the  floor.  Bladburn 
gave  me  a  quick  glance.  I  picked  up  the  book, 
and  as  I  placed  it  in  his  hand,  the  icy  fingers 
closed  softly  over  mine.  He  was  sinking  fast. 
In  a  few  minutes  the  surgeon  finished  his  exami- 
nation. When  he  rose  to  his  feet  there  were 
tears  on  the  weather-beaten  cheeks.  He  was  a 
rough  outside,  but  a  tender  heart. 

"  My  poor  lad,"  he  blurted  out,  "  it 's  no  use. 
If  you  've  anything  to  say,  say  it  now,  for  you  've 
nearly  done  with  this  world." 

Then  Bladburn  lifted  his  eyes  slowly  to  the 
surgeon,  and  the  old  smile  flitted  over  his  face  as 
he  murmured, 

"  Quite  so." 


A  YOUNG  DESPERADO. 


\  T  THEN  Johnny  is  all  snugly  curled  up  in 
^  ^  bed,  with  his  rosy  cheek  resting  on  one 
of  his  scratched  and  grimy  little  hands,  forming 
altogether  a  faultless  picture  of  peace  and  inno- 
cence, it  is  hard  to  realize  what  a  busy,  restive, 
pugnacious,  badly  ingenious  little  wretch  he  is  ! 
There  is  something  so  comical  in  those  pygmy 
shoes  and  stockings  sprawling  on  the  floor, — 
they  look  as  if  they  could  jump  up  and  run  off, 
if  they  wanted  to,  —  there  is  something  so  laugh- 
able about  those  little  trousers,  which  appear  to 
be  making  futile  attempts  to  climb  up  into  the 
easy-chair,  —  the  said  trousers  still  retaining  the 
shape  of  Johnny's  active  legs,  and  refusing  to  go 
to  sleep,  —  there  is  something,  I  say,  about  these 
things,  and  about  Johnny  himself,  which  makes 
it  difficult  for  me  to  remember  that,  when  Johnny 
is  awake,  he  possesses  the  cunning  of  Machiavel 
and  the  sang-froid  of  the  Capitaine  Fracasse. 


A    YOUNG    DESPERADO.  135 

I  am  sure  I  do  not  know  how  he  came  by  such 
unpleasant  traits.  I  am  myself  the  least  diplo- 
matic and  audacious  of  men.  Of  course,  I  do 
not  mean  to  imply  that  Johnny  inherited  his  dis- 
position from  his  mother.  She  is  the  gentlest  of 
women.  But  when  you  come  to  Johnny,  —  he  's 
the  terror  of  the  whole  neighborhood. 

He  was  meek  enough  at  first,  —  that  is  to  say, 
for  the  first  six  or  seven  days  of  his  existence. 
But  I  verily  believe  he  was  not  more  than  eleven 
days  old  and  twenty-two  inches  long  when  he 
showed  a  degree  of  temper  that  would  have  been 
respectable  in  an  aged  giant.  On  that  occasion 
he  turned  very  red  in  the  face,  —  he  was  super- 
fluously red  before,  —  doubled  up  his  ridiculous 
hands  in  the  most  tln:*eatening  manner,  and 
finally,  in  the  impotency  of  rage,  punched  him- 
self in  the  eye.  When  I  think  of  the  life  he  led 
his  mother  and  Susan  during  the  first  eighteen 
months  after  his  arrival,  I  shrink  from  the  re- 
sponsibility of  allowing  Johnny  to  call  me  father. 

Johnny's  aggressive  disposition  was  not  more 
early  developed  than  his  duplicity.  By  the  time 
he  was  two  years  of  age  I  had  got  the  following 
bitter  maxim  by  heart ;  "  Whenever  J.   is  par- 


136  A   YOUNG   DESPERADO. 

ticularly  quiet,  look  out  for  squalls."  He  was 
sure  to  be  in  some  mischief.  And  I  must  say 
there  was  a  novelty,  an  unexpectedness,  an  in- 
genuity, in  his  badness  that  constantly  astonished 
me.  The  crimes  he  committed  could  be  arranged 
alphabetically.  He  never  repeated  himself.  His 
evil  resources  were  inexhaustible.  He  never  did 
the  thing  I  expected  he  would.  He  never  failed 
to  do  the  thing  I  was  unprepared  for.  I  am  not 
thinking  so  much  of  the  time  when  he  painted 
my  writing-desk  with  raspberry  jam  as  of  the 
occasion  when  he  perpetrated  an  act  of  original 
cruelty  on  Mopsey,  a  favorite  kitten  in  the  house- 
hold. We  were  sitting  in  the  library.  Johnny 
was  playing  in  the  front  hall.  In  view  of  the 
supernatural  stillness  that  reigned,  I  remarked, 
suspiciously,  "  Johnny  is  very  quiet,  my  dear." 
At  that  moment  a  series  of  pathetic  mews  was 
heard  in  the  entry,  followed  by  a  violent  scratch- 
ing on  the  oil-cloth.  Then  Mopsey  bounded  into 
the  room  with  three  empty  spools  strung  upon 
her  tail.  The  spools  were  removed  with  great 
difficulty,  especially  the  last  one,  which  fitted 
remarkably  tight.  After  that,  Mopsey  never  saw 
a  work-basket  without  arching  her  tortoise-shell 


A    YOUNG    DESPERADO.  137 

back,  and  distending  her  tail  to  three  times  its 
natural  thickness.  Another  child  would  have 
squeezed  the  kitten,  or  stuck  a  pin  in  her,  or 
twisted  the  tail ;  it  was  reserved  for  the  superior 
genius  of  Johnny  to  string  rather  small  spools 
upon  it.  He  heightened  expectation  by  never 
doing  the  obvious  thing. 

It  was  this  fertility  and  happiness,  if  I  may  say 
so,  of  invention  that  prevented  me  from  being 
entirely  dejected  over  my  son's  behavior  at  this 
period.  Sometimes  the  temptation  to  seize  him 
and  shake  him  was  too  strong  for  poor  human 
nature.  But  I  always  regretted  it  afterwards. 
When  I  saw  him  asleep  in  his  tiny  bed,  with  one 
tear  dried  on  his  plump,  velvety  cheek  and  two 
little  mice-teeth  visible  through  the  parted  lips,  I 
could  not  help  thinking  what  a  little  bit  of  a 
fellow  he  was,  with  his  funny  little  fingers  and 
his  funny  little  nails  ;  and  it  did  not  seem  to  me 
that  he  was  the  sort  of  person  to  be  pitched  into 
by  a  great  strong  man  like  me. 

"  When  Johnny  grows  older,"  I  used  to  say  to 
his  mother,  "  I  '11  reason  with  him." 

Now  I  do  not  know  when  Johnny  will  grow 
old  enough  to  be  reasoned  with.     When  I  reflect 


138  A   YOUNG    DESPERADO. 

liow  liard  it  is  to  reason  with  wise  grown-up 
people,  if  they  happen  to  be  unwilling  to  accept 
your  view  of  matters,  I  am  inclined  to  be  very 
patient  with  Johnny,  whose  experience  is  rather 
limited,  after  all,  though  he  is  six  years  and  a 
half  old,  and  naturally  wants  to  know  why  and 
wherefore.  Somebody  says  something  about  the 
duty  of  "  blind  obedience."  I  cannot  expect 
Johnny  to  have  more  wisdom  than  Solomon,  and 
to  be  more  philosophic  than  the  philosophers. 

At  times,  indeed,  I  have  been  led  to  exjject 
this  from  him.  He  has  shown  a  depth  of  mind 
that  warranted  me  in  looking  for  anything.  At 
times  he  seems  as  if  he  were  a  hundred  years 
old.  He  has  a  quaint,  bird-like  way  of  cocking 
his  head  on  one  side,  and  asking  a  question  that 
appears  to  be  the  result  of  years  of  study.  If  I 
could  answer  some  of  those  questions,  I  should 
solve  the  darkest  mysteries  of  life  and  death. 
His  inquiries,  however,  generally  have  a  grotesque 
flavor.  •  One  night,  when  the  mosquitoes  were 
making  sprightly  raids  on  his  person,  he  appealed 
to  me,  suddenly :  ^'  How  does  the  moon  feel 
when  a  skeeter  bites  it  ? "  To  his  meditative 
mind,  the  broad,  smooth  surface   of  the   moon 


A    YOUNG    DESPERADO.  Ic59 

presented  a  temptation  not  to  be  resisted  by  any 
wandering  bird  of  prey. 

I  freely  confess  that  Johnny  is  now  and  then 
too  much  for  me.  I  wish  I  could  read  him  as 
cleverly  as  he  reads  me.  He  knows  all  my  weak 
points ;  he  sees  right  through  me,  and  makes  me 
feel  that  I  am  a  helpless  infant  in  his  adroit 
hands.  He  has  an  argumentative,  oracular  air, 
wdien  things  have  gone  w^rong,  which  always 
upsets  my  dignity.  Yet  how  cunningly  he  uses 
his  power  !  It  is  only  in  the  last  extremity  that 
he  crosses  his  legs,  puts  his  hands  into  his 
trousers-pockets,  and  argues  the  case  with  me. 
One  day  last  week  he  was  very  near  coming  to 
grief.  By  my  directions,  kindling-wood  and  coal 
are  placed  every  morning  in  the  library  grate,  in 
order  that  I  may  have  a  fire  the  moment  I  return 
at  night.  Master  Johnny  must  needs  apply  a 
lighted  match  to  this  arrangement  early  in  the 
forenoon.  The  fire  was  not  discovered  until  the 
blower  was  one  mass  of  incandescent  iron,  and 
the  wooden  mantel-shelf  was  smoking  with  the 
intense  heat. 

When  I  came  home,  Johnny  was  led  from  the 
store-room,  where  he  had  been  imprisoned  from 


140  A   YOUNG    DESPERADO. 

an  early  period,  and  where  he  had  employed  him- 
seK  in  eating  about  two  dollars'  worth  of  pre- 
served pears. 

"  Johnny,"  said  I,  in  as  severe  a  tone  as  one 
could  use  in  addressing  a  person  whose  forehead 
glistened  with  syrup,  — "  Johnny,  don't  you 
remember  that  I  have  always  told  you  never  to 
meddle  with  matches  ?  " 

It  was  something  delicious  to  see  Johnny  try- 
ing to  remember.  He  cast  one  eye  meditatively 
up  to  the  ceiling,  then  he  fixed  it  abstractedly  on 
the  canary-bird,  then  he  rubbed  his  ruffled  brows 
with  a  sticky  hand ;  but  really,  for  the  life  of 
him,  he  could  n't  recall  any  injunctions  concern- 
ing matches. 

"  I  can't,  papa,  truly,"  said  Johnny  at  length. 
"  I  guess  I  must  have  forgot  it." 

"  Well,  Johnny,  in  order  that  you  may  not 
forget  it  in  future  —  " 

Here  Johnny  was  seized  with  an  idea.  He 
interrupted  me. 

"I'll  tell  you  what  you  do,  papa,  —  you  jest 
put  it  down  in  writin\^^ 

With  the  air  of  a  man  who  has  settled  a  ques- 
tion definitely,  but  at  the  same  time  is  willing  to 


A    YOUNG    DESPERADO.  141 

listen  politely  to  any  crude  suggestions  that  you 
may  have  to  throw  out,  Johnny  crossed  his  legs, 
and  thrust  his  hands  into  those  wonderful 
trousers-pockets.  I  turned  my  face  aside,  for  I 
felt  a  certain  weakness  creeping  into  the  corners 
of  my  mouth.  I  was  lost.  In  an  instant  the 
little  head,  covered  all  over  with  brown  curls, 
was  laid  upon  my  knee,  and  Johnny  was  crying, 
"  I  'm  so  very,  very  sorry  !  " 

I  have  said  that  Johnny  is  the  terror  of  the 
neighborhood.  I  think  I  have  not  done  the  young 
gentleman  an  injustice.  If  there  is  a  window 
broken  within  the  radius  of  two  miles  from  our 
house,  Johnny's  ball,  or  a  stone  known  to  have 
come  from  his  dexterous  hand,  is  almost  certain 
to  be  found  in  the  battered  premises.  I  never 
hear  the  musical  jingling  of  splintered  glass  but 
my  porte^monnaie  gives  a  convulsive  throb  in  my 
breast-pocket.  There  is  not  a  doorstep  in  our 
street  that  has  not  borne  evidences  in  red  chalk 
of  his  artistic  ability  ;  there  is  not  a  bell  that  he 
has  n't  rung  and  run  away  from  at  least  three 
hundred  times.  Scarcely  a  day  passes  but  he 
falls  out  of  something,  or  over  something,  or 
into  something.     A  ladder  running  up  to  the 


142  A    YOUNG   DESPERADO. 

dizzy  roof  of  an  unfinished  building  is  no  more 
to  be  resisted  by  him  than  the  back  platform  of 
a  horse-car,  when  the  conductor  is  collecting  his 
fare  in  front. 

I  should  not  like  to  enumerate  the  battles  that 
Johnny  has  fought  during  the  past  eight  months. 
It  is  a  physical  impossibility,  I  should  judge,  for 
him  to  refuse  a  challenge.  He  picks  his  enemies 
impartially  out  of  all  ranks  of  society.  He  has 
fought  the  ash-man's  boy,  the  grocer's  boy,  the 
plumber's  boy,  (I  was  glad  of  that !)  the  rich 
boys  over  the  way,  and  any  number  of  miscella- 
neous boys  who  chanced  to  stray  into  our  street. 

I  cannot  say  that  this  young  desperado  is  al- 
ways victorious.  I  have  known  the  tip  of  his 
nose  to  be  in  a  state  of  unpleasant  redness  for 
weeks  together.  I  have  known  him  to  come 
home  frequently  with  no  brim  to  his  hat ;  once 
he  presented  himself  with  only  one  shoe,  on 
which  occasion  his  jacket  was  split  up  the  back 
in  a  manner  that  gave  him  the  appearance  of  an 
over-ripe  chestnut  bursting  out  of  its  bur.  How 
he  will  fight !  But  this  I  can  say,  —  if  Johnny 
is  as  cruel  as  Caligula,  he  is  every  inch  as  brave 
as  Agamemnon. 


A    YOUNG    DESPERADO.  143 

At  present  the  General,  as  I  sometimes  call 
him,  is  in  hospital.  He  was  seriously  wounded 
at  the  battle  of  The  Little  Go-Cart,  on  the  9th 
instant.  On  returning  from  my  office  yesterday 
evening,  I  found  that  scarred  veteran  stretched 
upon  a  sofa  in  the  sitting-room,  with  a  patch  of 
brown  paper  stuck  over  his  left  eye,  and  a  con- 
victing smell  of  vinegar  about  him. 

"  Yes,"  said  his  mother,  dolefully,  "  Johnny  's 
been  fighting  again.  That  horrid  Barnabee  boy 
(who  is  eight  years  old,  if  he  is  a  day)  won't  let 
the  child  alone." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "I  hope  Johnny  gave  that 
Barnabee  boy  a  thrashing." 

"  Did  n't  I,  though  ?  "  cries  Johnny,  from  the 
sofa.    "  You  bet ! " 

"  0  Johnny !  "    remonstrates  his  mother. 

Now,  several  days  previous  to  this,  I  had  ad- 
dressed the  General  in  the  following  terms  :  — 

"  Johnny,  if  I  ever  catch  you  in  another  fight 
of  your  own  seeking,  I  shall  cane  you." 

In  consequence  of  this  declaration,  it  became 
my  duty  to  look  into  the  circumstances  of  the 
present  affair,  which  will  be  known  in  history  as 
the  battle  of  The  Little  Go-Cart.     After  going 


144  A    YOUNG    DESPERADO. 

over  the  ground  very  carefully,  I  found  the  fol- 
lowing to  be  the  state  of  the  case. 

It  seems  that  the  Barnabee  Boy  —  I  speak  of 
him  as  if  he  were  the  Benicia  Boy  —  is  the  oldest 
pupil  in  the  Primary  Military  School  (I  think  it 
must  be  a  military  school)  of  which  Johnny  is  a 
recent  member.  This  Barnabee,  having  whipped 
every  one  of  his  companions,  was  sighing  for 
new  boys  to  conquer,  when  Johnny  joined  the 
institution.  He  at  once  made  friendly  overtures 
of  battle  to  Johnny,  who,  oddly  enough,  seemed 
indisposed  to  encourage  his  advances.  Then 
Barnabee  began  a  series  of  petty  persecutions, 
which  had  continued  up  to  the  day  of  the  fight. 

On  the  morning  of  that  eventful  day  the  Bar- 
nabee Boy  appeared  in  the  school-yard  with  a 
small  go-cart.  After  running  down  on  Johnny 
several  times  with  this  useful  vehicle,  he  captured 
Johnny's  cap,  filled  it  with  sand,  and  dragged 
it  up  and  down  the  yard  triumphantly  in  the 
go-cart.  This  made  the  General  very  indignant, 
of  course,  and  he  took  an  early  opportunity  of 
kicking  over  the  triumphal  car,  in  doing  which 
he  kicked  one  of  the  wheels  so  far  into  space 
that  it  has  not  been  seen  since. 


A    YOUXG    DESPi:UADO. 


145 


This  brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  The  battle 
would  have  taken  place  then  and  there ;  but  at 
that  moment  the  school-bell  rang,  and  the  gladia- 
tors were  obliged  to  give  their  attention  to  Smith's 
Speller.  But  a  gloom  hung  over  the  morning's 
exercises,  —  a  gloom  that  was  not  dispelled  in 
the  back  row,  when  the  Barnabee  Boy  stealthily 
held  up  to  Johnny's  vision  a  slate,  whereon  was 
inscribed  thi«  fearful  message  :  — 


Johnny  got  it  "  put  down  in  writin'  "  that 
time  ! 

After  a  hasty  glance  at  the  slate,  the  General 
went  on  with  his  studies  composedly  enough. 
Eleven  o'clock  came,  and  with  it  came  recess, 
and  with  recess  the  inevitable  battle. 

Now  I  do  not  intend  to  describe  the  details  of 
this  brilliant  action,  for  the  sufficient  reason  that, 
though  there  were  seven  young  gentlemen  (con- 

7  / 


146  A    YOUNG    DESPERADO. 

nected  with  the  Primary  School)  on  the  field  as 
war  correspondents,  their  accounts  of  the  engage- 
ment are  so  contradictory  as  to  be  utterly  worth- 
less. On  one  point  they  all  agree,  —  that  the 
contest  was  sharp,  short,  and  decisive.  The 
truth  is,  the  General  is  a  quick,  wiry,  experienced 
old  hero ;  and  it  did  not  take  him  long  to  rout 
the  Barnabee  Boy,  who  is  in  reality  a  coward,  as 
all  bullies  and  tyrants  have  ever  been,  and  al- 
ways will  be. 

I  do  not  approve  of  boys  fighting ;  I  do  not 
defend  Johnny  ;  but  if  the  General  wants  an 
extra  ration  or  two  of  preserved  pear,  he  shall 
have  it! 

I  am  thoroughly  aware  that,  socially  speaking, 
Johnny  is  a  Black  Sheep.  I  know  that  I  have 
brought  him  up  badly,  and  that  there  is  not  an 
unmarried  man  or  woman  in  the  United  States 
who  would  n't  have  brought  him  up  "  very  dif- 
ferently." It  is  a  great  pity  that  the  only  peo- 
ple who  know  how  to  manage  children  never 
have  any.  At  the  same  time,  Johnny  is  not  a 
black  sheep  all  over.  He  has  some  white  spots. 
His  sins  —  if  wiser  folks  had  no  greater  !  —  are 


A    YOUNG    DESPERADO.  14? 

the  result  of  too  much  animal  life.  They  belong 
to  his  evanescent  youth,  and  will  pass  away  ;  but 
his  honesty,  his  generosity,  his  bravery,  belong 
to  his  character,  and  are  enduring  qualities.  The 
quickly  crowding  years  will  tame  him.  An  ex- 
pensive pane  of  glass,  or  a  protrusive  bell-knob, 
ceases  in  time  to  have  attractions  for  the  most 
susceptible  temperament.  And  I  am  confident 
that  Johnny  will  be  a  great  statesman,  or  a  val- 
orous soldier,  or,  at  all  events,  a  good  citizen, 
after  he  has  got  over  being  A  Young  Desperado. 


MISS  MEHETABEL'S  SON. 


I. 

The  old  Tavern  at  Bayley's  Pour-Corners. 

'V'OU  will  not  find  Greenton,  or  Bayley's  Four- 
-*■  Corners  as  it  is  more  usually  designated,  on 
any  map  of  New  England  that  I  know  of.  It  is 
not  a  town  ;  it  is  not  even  a  village  ;  it  is  merely 
an  absurd  hotel.  The  almost  indescribable  place 
called  Greenton  is  at  the  intersection  of  four 
roads,  in  the  heart  of  New  Hampshire,  twenty 
miles  from  the  nearest  settlement  of  note,  and 
ten  miles  from  any  railway  station.  A  good 
location  for  a  hotel,  you  will  say.  Precisely  ; 
but  there  has  always  been  a  hotel  there,  and  for 
the  last  dozen  years  it  has  been  pretty  well  pat- 
ronized —  by  one  boarder.  Not  to  trifle  with  an 
intelligent  public,  I  will  state  at  once  that,  in  the 
early  part  of  this  century,  Greenton  was  a  point 
at  which  the  mail-coach,  on  the  Great  Northern 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  149 

Route,  stopped  to  change  horses  and  allow  the 
passengers  to  dine.     People  in  the  county,  wish- 
ing to  take  the  early  mail  Portsmouth-ward,  put 
up  overnight  at  the  old  tavern,  famous  for  its 
irreproachable  larder  and  soft  feather-beds.     The 
tavern  at  that  time  was  kept  by  Jonathan  Bay- 
ley,  who  rivalled  his  wallet  in  growing  corpulent, 
and  in  due  time  passed  away.     At  his  death  the 
establishment,  which  included  a  farm,  fell  into 
the  hands  of  a  son-in-law.     Now,  though  Bayley 
left  his  son-in-law  a  hotel,  —  which  sounds  hand- 
some, —  he  left  him  no  guests  ;  for  at  about  the 
period  of  the  old  man's  death  the  old  stage-coach 
died  also.     Apoplexy  carried  off  one,  and  steam 
the  other.     Thus,  by  a  sudden  swerve  in  the  tide 
of    progress,  the  tavern  at  the   Corners   found 
itself  high  and  dry,  like  a  wreck  on  a  sand-bank. 
Shortly  after  this  event,  or  maybe  contempora- 
neously, there  was  some  attempt  to  build  a  town 
at  Greenton ;  but  it  apparently  failed,  if  eleven 
cellars  choked  up  with   debris   and   overgrown 
with  burdocks  are  any  indication  of  failure.    The 
farm,  however,  was  a  good  farm,  as  things  go  in 
New  Hampshire ;  and  Tobias  Sewell,  the  son-in- 
law,  could  afford  to  snap  his  fingers  at  the  trav- 


150  MISS    MEHETABEL  S    SON. 

elling  public  if  they  came  near  enough,  —  whicK 
they  never  did. 

The  hotel  remains  to-day  pretty  much  the  same 
as  when  Jonathan  Bayley  handed  in  his  accounts 
in  1840,  except  that  Sewell  has  from  time  to  time 
sold  the  furniture  of  some  of  the  upper  chambers 
to  bridal  couples  in  the  neighborhood.  The  bar 
is  still  open,  and  the  parlor  door  says  Parlour 
in  tall  black  letters.  Now  and  then  a  passing 
drover  looks  in  at  that  lonely  bar-room,  where  a 
high-shouldered  bottle  of  Santa  Cruz  rum  ogles 
with  a  peculiarly  knowing  air  a  shrivelled  lemon 
on  a  shelf ;  now  and  then  a  farmer  comes  across 
country  to  talk  crops  and  stock  and  take  a  friendly 
glass  with  Tobias ;  and  now  and  then  a  circus 
caravan  with  speckled  ponies,  or  a  menagerie  with 
a  soggy  elephant,  halts  under  the  swinging  sign, 
on  which  there  is  a  dim  mail-coach  with  four 
phantomish  horses  driven  by  a  portly  gentleman 
whose  head  has  been  washed  off  by  the  rain. 
Other  customers  there  are  none,  except  that  one 
regular  boarder  whom  I  have  mentioned. 

If  misery  makes  a  man  acquainted  with  strange 
bedfellows,  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  profession 
of  surveyor  and  civil  engineer  often  takes  one 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  151 

into  undreamed-of  localities.  I  had  never  heard  of 
Greenton  until  my  duties  sent  me  there,  and  kept 
me  there  two  weeks  in  the  dreariest  season  of  the 
year.  I  do  not  think  I  would,  of  my  own  voli- 
tion, have  selected  Greenton  for  a  fortnight's 
sojourn  at  any  time  ;  but  now  the  business  is 
over,  I  shall  never  regret  the  circumstances  that 
made  me  the  guest  of  Tobias  Sewell  and  brought 
me  into  intimate  relations  with  Miss  Mehetabel's 
Son. 

It  was  a  black  October  night  in  the  year  of 
grace  1872,  that  discovered  me  standing  in  front 
of  the  old  tavern  at  the  Corners.     Though  the 

ten  miles'  ride  from  K had  been  depressing, 

especially  the  last  five  miles,  on  account  of  the 
cold  autumnal  rain  that  had  set  in,  I  felt  a  pang 
of  regret  on  hearing  the  rickety  open  wagon  turn 
round  in  the  road  and  roll  off  in  the  darkness. 
There  were  no  lights  visible  anywhere,  and  only 
for  the  big,  shapeless  mass  of  something  in  front 
of  me,  which  the  driver  had  said  was  the  hotel,  I 
should  have  fancied  that  I  had  been  set  down  by 
the  roadside.  I  was  wet  to  the  skin  and  in  no 
amiable  humor ;  and  not  being  able  to  find  bell-pull 
or  knocker,  or  even  a  door,  I  belabored  the  side 


152  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

of  the  house  with  my  heavy  walking-stick.  In  a 
minute  or  two  I  saw  a  light  flickering  somewhere 
aloft,  then  I  heard  the  sound  of  a  window  open- 
ing, followed  by  an  exclamation  of  disgust  as  a 
blast  of  wind  extinguished  the  candle  which  had 
given  me  an  instantaneous  picture  en  silhoueUe 
of  a  man  leaning  out  of  a  casement. 

"  I  say,  what  do  you  want,  down  there  ?  "  said 
an  unprepossessing  voice. 

"  I  want  to  come  in,  I  want  a  supper,  and  a 
bed,  and  numberless  things." 

"  This  is  n't  no  time  of  night  to  go  rousing 
honest  folks  out  of  their  sleep.  Who  are  you, 
anyway  ?  '' 

The  question,  superficially  considered,  was  a 
very  simple  one,  and  I,  of  all  people  in  the  world, 
ought  to  have  been  able  to  answer  it  off-hand ; 
but  it  staggered  me.  Strangely  enough,  there 
came  drifting  across  my  memory  the  lettering  on 
the  back  of  a  metaphysical  work  which  I  had 
seen  years  before  on  a  shelf  in  the  Astor  Library. 
Owing  to  an  unpremeditatedly  funny  collocation 
of  title  and  author,  the  lettering  read  as  follows  : 
"  Who  Am  I  ?  Jones."  Evidently  it  had  puz- 
zled Jones  to  know  who  he  was,  or  he  would  n't 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  153 

ha^e  written  a  book  about  it,  and  come  to  so 
lame  and  impotent  a  conclusion.  It  certainly 
puzzled  me  at  that  instant  to  define  my  identity. 
*'  Thirty  years  ago,"  I  reflected,  "  I  was  noth- 
ing ;  fifty  years  hence  I  shall  be  nothing  again, 
humanly  speaking.  In  the  mean  time,  who  am 
I,  sure  enough  ?  "  It  had  never  occurred  to  me 
before  what  an  indefinite  article  I  was.  I  wish 
it  had  not  occurred  to  me  then.  Standing  there 
in  the  rain  and  darkness,  I  wrestled  vainly  with 
the  problem,  and  was  constrained  to  fall  back 
upon  a  Yankee  expedient. 

"  Is  n't  this  a  hotel  ?  "   I  asked  finally. 

"  Well,  it  is  a  sort  of  hotel,"  said  the  voice, 
doubtfully.  My  hesitation  and  prevarication  had 
apparently  not  inspired  my  interlocutor  with  con- 
fidence in  me. 

"  Then  let  me  in.     I  have  just  driven  over 

from  K in  this  infernal  rain.      I  am  wet 

through  and  through." 

"  But  what  do  you  want  here,  at  the  Corners  ? 
What 's  your  business  ?  People  don't  come  here> 
least  ways  in  the  middle  of  the  night." 

"  It  is  n't  in  the  middle  of  the  night,"  I  re- 
turned, incensed.   ''  I  come  on  business  connected 

7* 


154  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

with  the  new  road.     I  'm  the  superintendent  of 
the  works." 

"  Oh ! " 

"  And  if  you  don't  open  the  door  at  once,  I  '11 
raise  the  whole  neighborhood,  —  and  then  go  to 
the  other  hotel." 

When  I  said  that,  I  supposed  Greenton  was  a 
village  with  three  or  four  thousand  population  at 
least,  and  was  wondering  vaguely  at  the  absence 
of  lights  and  other  signs  of  human  habitation. 
Surely,  I  thought,  all  the  people  cannot  be  abed 
and  asleep  at  half  past  tei;i  o'clock :  perhaps  I  am 
in  the  business  section  of  the  town,  among  the 
shops. 

"  You  jest  wait,"  said  the  voice  above. 

This  request  was  not  devoid  of  a  certain  ac- 
cent of  menace,  and  I  braced  myself  for  a  sor- 
tie on  the  part  of  the  besieged,  if  he  had  any 
such  hostile  intent.  Presently  a  door  opened 
at  the  very  place  where  I  least  expected  a  door, 
at  the  farther  end  of  the  building,  in  fact,  and 
•a  man  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  shielding  a  candle 
with  his  left  hand,  appeared  on  the  thresh- 
old. I  passed  quickly  into  the  house  with  Mr. 
Tobias  Sewell  (for  tliis  was  Mr.  Sewell)  at  my 


MISS  meiietabel's  son.  155 

heels,  and  found  myself  in  a  long,  low-studded 
bar-room. 

There  were  two  chairs  drawn  up  before  the 
hearth,  on  which  a  huge  hemlock  backlog  was 
still  smouldering,  and  on  the  unpainted  deal 
counter  contiguous  stood  two  cloudy  glasses  with 
bits  of  lemon-peel  in  the  bottom,  hinting  at  re- 
cent libations.  Against  the  discolored  wall  over 
the  bar  hung  a  yellowed  handbill,  in  a  warped 
frame,  announcing  that "  the  Next  Annual  N.  H. 
Agricultural  Fair  "  would  take  place  on  the  10th 
of  September,  1841.  There  was  no  other  furni- 
ture or  decoration  in  this  dismal  apartment,  ex- 
cept the  cobwebs  which  festooned  the  ceiling, 
hanging  down  here  and  there  like  stalactites. 

Mr.  Sewell  set  the  candlestick  on  the  mantel- 
shelf, and  threw  some  pine-knots  on  the  fire, 
which  immediately  broke  into  a  blaze,  and  showed 
him  to  be  a  lank,'  narrow-chested  man,  past  sixty, 
with  sparse,  steel-gray  hair,  and  small,  deep-set 
eyes,  perfectly  round,  like  a  carp's,  and  of  no 
particular  color.  Jlis  chief  personal  character- 
istics seemed  to  be  too  much  feet  and  not  enough 
teeth.  His  sharply  cut,  but  rather  simple  face, 
as  he  turned  it  towards  me,  wore  a  look  of  inter- 


156  MISS    MEIIETABEL  S    SON. 

rogation.  I  replied  to  his  mute  inquiry  by  tak- 
ing out  my  pocket-book  and  handing  him  my 
business-card,  which  he  held  up  to  the  candle  and 
perused  with  great  deliberation. 

"  You  're  a  civil  engineer,  are  you  ?  "  he  said, 
displaying  his  gimis,  which  gave  his  countenance 
an  expression  of  almost  infantile  innocence.  He 
made  no  further  audible  remark,  but  mumbled 
between  his  thin  lips  something  which  an  imagi- 
native  person  might  have  construed  into,  "  If 
you  're  a  civil  engineer,  I  '11  be  blessed  if  I  would 
n't  like  to  see  an  uncivil  one  !  " 

Mr.  Sewell's  growl,  however,  was  worse  thaii 
his  bite,  —  owing  to  his  lack  of  teeth  probably, 
—  for  he  very  good-naturedly  set  himself  to  worl^ 
preparing  supper  for  me.  After  a  slice  of  cold 
ham,  and  a  warm  punch,  to  which  my  chilled 
condition  gave  a  grateful  flavor,  I  went  to  bed  in 
a  distant  chamber  in  a  most  amiable  mood,  feel- 
ing satisfied  that  Jones  was  a  donkey  to  bother 
himself  about  his  identity. 

When  I  awoke  the  sun  was.  several  hours  high. 
My  bed  faced  a  window,  and  by  raising  myself 
on  one  elbow  I  could  look  out  on  what  I  ex 
pected  would  be  the  main  street.     To  my  astonish 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  157 

ment  I  beheld  a  lonely  country  road  winding  up 
a  sterile  hill  and  disappearing  over  the  ridge. 
In  a  cornfield  at  the  right  of  the  road  was  a 
small  private  graveyard  enclosed  by  a  crumbling 
stone-wall  with  a  red  gate.  The  only  thing  sug- 
gestive of  life  was  this  little  corner  lot  occupied 
by  death.  I  got  out  of  bed  and  went  to  the 
other  window.  There  I  had  an  uninterrupted 
view  of  twelve  miles  of  open  landscape,  with 
Mount  Agamenticus  in  the  purple  distance.  Not 
a  house  or  a  spire  in  sight.  "  Well,"  I  exclaimed, 
"  Greenton  does  n't  appear  to  be  a  very  closely 
packed  metropolis ! "  That  rival  hotel  with 
which  I  had  threatened  Mr.  Sewell  overnight  was 
not  a  deadly  weapon,  looking  at  it  by  daylight. 
"  By  Jove  !  "  I  reflected,  "  maybe  I  'm  in  the 
wrong  place."  But  there,  tacked  against  a  panel 
of  the  bedroom  door,  was  a  faded  time-table 
dated  Greenton,  August  1,  1839. 

I  smiled  all  the  time  I  was  dressing,  and  went 
smiling  down  stairs,  where  I  found  Mr.  Sewell, 
assisted  by  one  of  the  fair  sex  in  the  first  bloom 
of  lier  eightieth  year,  serving  breakfast  for  me 
on  a  small  table  —  in  the  bar-room  ! 

"  I    overslept    myself   this    morning,"    I    re- 


158  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

marked  apologetically,  "  and  I  see  that  I  am  put- 
ting you  to  some  trouble.     In  future,  if  you  will 
have  me  called,  I  will  take  my  meals  at  the  usual 
tahle-dliote:' 
,    "  At  the  what  ?  "  said  Mr.  Sewell. 

"  I  mean  with  the  other  boarders." 

Mr.  Sewell  paused  in  the  act  of  lifting  a  chop 
from  the  fire,  and,  resting  the  point  of  his  fork 
against  the  woodwork  of  the  mantel-piece,  grinned 
from  ear  to  ear. 

"  Bless  you !  there  is  n't  any  other  boarders. 
There  has  n't  been  anybody  put  up  here  sence  — 
let  me  see  —  sence  father-in-law  died,  and  that 
was  in  the  fall  of  '40.  To  be  sure,  there  's  Silas  ; 
/ig  's  a  regular  boarder ;  but  I  don't  count  him." 

Mr.  Sewell  then  explained  how  the  tavern  had 
lost  its  custom  when  the  old  stage  line  was 
broken  up  by  the  railroad.  The  introduction  of 
steam  was,  in  Mr.  Sewell's  estimation,  a  fata] 
error.  "  Jest  killed  local  business.  Carried  it 
off  I  'm  darned  if  I  know  where.  The  whole 
country  has  been  sort  o'  retrograding  ever  sence 
steam  was  invented." 

"  You  spoke  of  having  one  boarder,"  I  said. 

"  Silas  ?      Yes  ;    he   came  here  the   summer 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  159 

'Tilda  died,  —  she  that  was  'Tilda  Bayley,  — 
and  he  's  here  yet,  going  on  thirteen  year.  He 
could  n't  live  any  longer  with  the  old  man.  Be- 
tween you  and  I,  old  Clem  Jaffrey,  Silas's  father, 
was  a  hard  nut.  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Sewell,  crook- 
ing his  elbow  in  inimitable  pantomime,  "  alto- 
gether too  often.  Found  dead  in  the  road  hug- 
ging a  three-gallon  demijohn.  Habeas  corpus 
in  the  barn,"  added  Mr.  Sewell,  intending,  I 
presume,  to  intimate  that  a  post-mortem  exami- 
nation had  been  deemed  necessary.  "  Silas,"  he 
resumed,  in  that  respectful  tone  which  one  should 
always  adopt  when  speaking  of  capital,  "  is  a 
man  of  considerable  property;  lives  on  his  in- 
terest, and  keeps  a  boss  and  shay.  He 's  a  great 
scholar,  too,  Silas ;  takes  all  the  pe-ri-odicals  and 
the  Police  Gazette  regular." 

Mr.  Sewell  was  turning  over  a  third  chop, 
when  the  door  opened  and  a  stoutish,  middle- 
aged  little  gentleman,  clad  in  deep  black,  stepped 
into  the  room. 

"  Silas  Jaffrey,"  said  Mr.  Sewell,  with  a  com- 
prehensive sweep  of  his  arm,  picking  up  me  and 
the  new-comer  on  one  fork,  so  to  speak.  "  Be 
acquainted !  " 


160  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

Mr.  Jaffrey  advanced  briskly,  and  gave  me  his 
hand  with  unlooked-for  cordiality.  He  was  a 
dapper  little  man,  with  a  head  as  round  and 
nearly  as  bald  as  an  orange,  and  not  unlike  an 
orange  in  complexion,  either  ;  he  had  twinkling 
gray  eyes  and  a  pronounced  Roman  nose,  the 
numerous  freckles  upon  which  were  deepened  by^ 
his  funereal  dress-coat  and  trousers.  He  re- 
minded me  of  Alfred  de  Musset's  blackbird, 
which,  with  its  yellow  beak  and  sombre  plumage, 
looked  like  an  undertaker  eating  an  omelet. 

"  Silas  will  take  care  of  you,"  said  Mr.  Sewell, 
taking  down  his  hat  from  a  peg  behind  the  door. 
"  I  Ve  got  the  cattle  to  look  after.  Tell  him,  if 
you  want  anything." 

While  I  ate  my  breakfast,  Mr.  Jaffrey  hopped 
up  and  down  the  narrow  bar-room  and  chirped 
away  as  blithely  as  a  bird  on  a  cherry-bough, 
occasionally  ruffling  with  his  fingers  a  slight 
fringe  of  auburn  hair  which  stood  up  pertly 
round  his  head  and  seemed  to  possess  a  luminous 
quality  of  its  own. 

"  Don't  I  find  it  a  little  slow  up  here  at  the 
Corners  ?  Not  at  all,  my  dear  sir.  I  am  in 
the  thick  of  life  up  here.      So  many  interest- 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  161 

ing  things  going  on  all  over  the  world,  —  in- 
ventions, discoveries,  spirits,  railroad  disasters, 
mysterious  homicides.  Poets,  murderers,  musi- 
cians, statesmen,  distinguished  travellers,  prodi- 
gies of  all  kinds  turning  up  everywhere.  Very 
few  events  or  persons  escape  me.  I  take  six 
daily  city  papers,  thirteen  weekly  journals,  all 
the  monthly  magazines,  and  two  quarterlies.  I 
could  not  get  along  with  less.  I  could  n't  if  you 
asked  me.  I  never  feel  lonely.  How  can  I, 
being  on  intimate  terms,  as  it  were,  with  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  people  ?  There  's  that 
young  woman  out  West.  What  an  entertaining 
creature  she  is  !  —  now  in  Missouri,  now  in  In- 
diana, and  now  in  Minnesota,  always  on  the  go, 
and  all  the  time  shedding  needles  from  various 
parts  of  her  body  as  if  she  really  enjoyed  it ! 
Then  there  's  that  versatile  patriarch  who  walks 
hundreds  of  miles  and  saws  thousands  of  feet  of 
wood,  before  breakfast,  and  shows  no  signs  of 
giving  out.  Then  there  's  that  remarkable,  one 
may  say  that  historical  colored  woman  who  knew 
Benjamin  Franklin,  and  fought  at  the  battle  of 
Bunk  —  no,  it  is  the  old  negro  man  who  fought 
at  Bunker  Hill,  a  mere  infant,  of  course,  at  that 


162  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

period.  Really,  now,  it  is  quite  curious  to  ob- 
serve how  that  venerable  female  slave  —  for- 
merly an  African  princess  —  is  repeatedly  dying 
in  her  hundred  and  eleventh  year,  and  coming  to 
life  again  punctually  every  six  months  in  the 
small-type  paragraphs.  Are  you  aware,  sir,  that 
within  the  last  twelve  years  no  fewer  than  two 
hundred  and  eighty-seven  of  General  Washing- 
ton's colored  coachmen  have  died  ?  " 

For  the  soul  of  me  I  could  n't  tell  whether  tliis 
quaint  little  gentleman  was  chaffing  me  or  not. 
I  laid  down  my  knife  and  fork,  and  stared  at 
him. 

"  Then  there  are  the  mathematicians !  "  he 
cried  vivaciously,  without  waiting  for  a  reply. 
"  I  take  great  interest  in  them.  Hear  this  !  " 
and  Mr.  Jaffrey  drew  a  newspaper  from  a  pocket 
in  the  tail  of  his  coat,  and  read  as  follows  :  "  It 
has  been  estimated  that  if  all  the  candles  manu- 
factured hy  this  eminent  firm  (^Stearine  Sf  Co.^ 
were  placed  end  to  end^  they  would  reach  2  and 
J  times  around  the  globe.  Of  course,"  continued 
Mr.  Jaffrey,  folding  up  the  journal  reflectively, 
"  abstruse  calculations  of  this  kind  are  not,  per- 
haps, of  vital  importance,  but  they  indicate  the 


MISS  mehetabel's  sok.  163 

intellectual  activity  of  the  age.  Seriously,  now,'* 
he  said,  halting  in  front  of  the  table,  "  what  with 
books  and  papers  and  drives  about  the  country,  I 
do  not  find  the  days  too  long,  though  I  seldom 

see  any  one,  except  when  I  go  over  to  K for 

my  mail.  Existence  may  be  very  full  to  a  man 
who  stands  a  little  aside  from  the  tumult  and 
watches  it  with  philosophic  eye.  Possibly  he 
may  see  more  of  the  battle  than  those  who  are 
in  the  midst  of  the  action.  Once  I  was  strus:- 
gling  with  the  crowd,  as  eager  and  undaunted  as 
the  best ;  perhaps  I  should  have  been  struggling 
still.  Indeed,  I  know  my  life  would  have  been 
very  different  now  if  I  had  married  Mehetabel,^ 
if  I  had  married  Mehetabel." 

His  vivacity  was  gone,  a  sudden  cloud  had 
come  over  his  bright  face,  his  figure  seemed  to 
have  collapsed,  the  light  seemed  to  have  faded 
out  of  his  hair.  With  a  shuffling  step,  the  very 
antithesis  of  his  brisk,  elastic  tread,  he  turned 
to  the  door  and  passed  into  the  road. 

"  Well,"  I  said  to  myself,  "  if  Greenton  had 
forty  thousand  inhabitants,  it  could  n't  turn  out 
a  more  astonishing  old  party  than  that !  " 


164  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 


n. 


The  Case  of  Silas  Jaffrey. 

A  MAN  with  a  passion  for  bric-d-brac  is  always 
stumbling  over  antique  bronzes,  intaglios,  mo- 
saics, and  daggers  of  the  time  of  Benvenuto 
Cellini ;  the  bibliophile  finds  creamy  vellum  folios 
and  rare  Alduses  and  Elzevirs  waiting  for  him  at 
unsuspected  bookstalls  ;  the  numismatist  has  but 
to  stretch  forth  his  palm  to  have  priceless  coins 
drop  into  it.  My  own  weakness  is  odd  people, 
and  I  am  constantly  encountering  them.  It  was 
plain  I  had  unearthed  a  couple  of  very  queer 
specimens  at  Bayley's  Four-Corners.  I  saw  that 
a  fortnight  afforded  me  too  brief  an  opportunity 
to  develop  the  richness  of  both,  and  I  resolved  to 
devote  my  spare  time  to  Mr.  Jaffrey  alone,  in- 
stinctively recognizing  in  him  an  unfamiliar 
species.  My  professional  work  in  the  vicinity 
of  Greenton  left  my  evenings  and  occasionally 
aa  afternoon  unoccupied ;  these  intervals  I  pur- 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  165 

posed  to  employ  in  studying  and  classifying  my 
fellow-boarder.  It  was  necessary,  as  a  prelimi- 
nary step,  to  learn  something  of  his  previous 
history,  and  to  this  end  I  addressed  myself  to 
Mr.  Sewell  that  same  night. 

"  I  do  not  want  to  seem  inquisitive,"  I  said 
to  the  landlord,  as  he  was  fastening  up  the 
bar,  which,  by  the  way,  was  the  salie  a  manger 
and  general  sitting-room,  —  "I  do  not  want  to 
seem  inquisitive,  but  your  friend  Mr.  Jaffrey 
dropped  a  remark  this  morning  at  l)reakfast 
which  —  which  was  not  altogether  clear  to 
me." 

"  About  Mehetabel  ? "  asked  Mr.  Sewell,  un- 
easily. 

"  Yes." 

"  Well,  I  wish  he  would  n't !  " 

"  He  was  friendly  enough  in  the  course  of 
conversation  to  hint  to  me  that  he  had  not 
married  the  young  woman,  and  seemed  to  re- 
gret it." 

"  No,  he  did  n't  marry  Mehetabel." 

"  May  I  inquire  why  he  did  n't  marry  Me- 
hetabel ?  " 

"  Never  asked  her.     Might  have  married  the 


166  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

girl  forty  times.     Old  Elkins's  daughter,  over  at 

K .      She  'd   have   had   him   quick   enough. 

Seven  years,  off  and  on,  he  kept  company  with 
Mehetabel,  and  then  she  died." 

"  And  he  never  asked  her  ?  " 

"•  He  shilly-shallied.  Perhaps  he  did  n't  think 
of  it.  When  she  was  dead  and  gone,  then  Silas 
was  struck  all  of  a  heap,  —  and  that 's  all  about 
it." 

Obviously  Mr.  Sewell  did  not  intend  to  tell  me 
anything  more,  and  obviously  there  was  more  to 
tell.  The  topic  was  plainly  disagreeable  to  him 
for  some  reason  or  other,  and  that  unknown 
reason  of  course  piqued  my  curiosity. 

As  I  was  absent  from  dinner  and  supper 
that  day,  I  did  not  meet  Mr.  Jaffrey  again 
until  the  following  morning  at  breakfast.  He 
had  recovered  his  bird-like  manner,  and  was 
full  of  a  mysterious  assassination  that  had 
just  taken  place  in  New  York,  all  the  thrilling 
details  of  which  were  at  his  fingers'  ends.  It 
was  at  once  comical  and  sad  to  see  this  harm- 
less old  gentleman,  with  his  naive,  benevolent 
countenance,  and  his  thin  hair  flaming  up  in 
a  semicircle,  like  the  foot-lights  at  a  theatre,  rev- 


MISS    MEHETABEl's    SOX.  167 

elling  in  the  intricacies  of  the  unmentionable 
deed. 

"  You  come  up  to  my  room  to-night,"  he  cried, 
with  horrid  glee,  "  and  I  '11  give  you  my  theory 
of  the  murder.  I  '11  make  it  as  clear  as  day  to 
you  that  it  was  the  detective  himself  who  fired 
the  three  pistol-shots." 

It  was  not  so  much  the  desire  to  have  this 
point  elucidated  as  to  make  a  closer  study  of  Mr. 
Jaffrey  that  led  me  to  accept  his  invitation.  Mr. 
Jaffrey's  bedroom  was  in  an  L  of  the  building, 
and  was  in  no  way  noticeable  except  for  the 
numerous  files  of  newspapers  neatly  arranged 
against  the  blank  spaces  of  the  walls,  and  a  huge 
pile  of  old  magazines  which  stood  in  one  corner, 
reaching  nearly  up  to  the  ceiling,  and  threaten- 
ing to  topple  over  each  instant,  like  the  Leaning 
Tower  at  Pisa.  There  were  green  paper  shades 
at  the  windows,  some  faded  chintz  valances  about 
the  bed,  and  two  or  three  easy-chairs  covered 
with  chintz.  On  a  black-walnut  shelf  between 
the  windows  lay  a  choice  collection  of  meer- 
schaum and  brierwood  pipes. 

Filling  one  of  the  chocolate-colored  bowls  for 
me  and  another  for  himself,  Mr.  Jaffrey  began 


168  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

prattling ;  but  not  about  the  murder,  which  ap- 
peared to  have  flown  out  of  his  mind.  In  fact,  I 
do  not  remember  that  the  topic  was  even  touched 
upon,  either  then  or  afterwards. 

"  Cosey  nest  this,"  said  Mr.  Jaffrey,  glancing 
complacently  over  the  apartment.  "  What  is 
more  cheerful,  now,  in  the  fall  of  the  year,  than 
an  open  wood-fire  ?  Do  you  hear  those  little 
chirps  and  twitters  coming  out  of  that  piece  of 
apple-wood  ?  Those  are  the  ghosts  of  the  robins 
and  bluebirds  that  sang  upon  the  bough  when  it 
was  in  blossom  last  spring.  In  summer  whole 
flocks  of  them  come  fluttering  about  the  fniit- 
trees  under  the  window  :  so  I  have  singing  birds 
all  the  year  round.  I  take  it  very  easy  here,  I 
can  tell  you,  summer  and  winter.  Not  much 
society.  Tobias  is  not,  perhaps,  what  one  would 
term  a  great  intellectual  force,  but  he  means 
well.  He  's  a  realist,  —  believes  in  coming  down 
to  what  he  calls  *  the  hard  pan ' ;  but  his  heart  is 
in  the  right  place,  and  he  's  very  kind  to  me. 
The  wisest  thing  I  ever  did  in  my  life  was  to  sell 

out  my  grain  business  over  at  K -,  thirteen 

years  ago,  and  settle  down  at  the  Corners.  When 
a  man  has  made  a  competency,  what  does  he 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  169 

want  more  ?  Besides,  at  that  time  an  event  oc- 
curred which  destroyed  any  ambition  I  may  have 
had.    Mehetabel  died." 

"  The  lady  you  were  engaged  to  ?  " 

**  N-o,  not  precisely  engaged.  I  think  it  was 
quite  understood  between  us,  though  nothing  had 
been  said  on  the  subject.  Typhoid,"  added  Mr. 
Jaffrey,  in  a  low  voice. 

For  several  minutes  he  smoked  in  silence,  a 
vague,  troubled  look  playing  over  his  counte- 
nance. Presently  this  passed  away,  and  he  fixed 
his  gray  eyes  speculatively  upon  my  face. 

"  If  T  had  married  Mehetabel,"  said  Mr*.  Jaf- 
frey, slowly,  and  then  he  hesitated.  I  blew  a  ring 
of  smoke  into  the  air,  and,  resting  my  pipe  on  my 
knee,  dropped  into  an  attitude  of  attention.  "  If 
I  had  married  Mehetabel,  you  know,  we  should 
have  had  —  ahem !  —  a  family." 

"  Very  likely,"  I  assented,  vastly  amused  at 
this  unexpected  turn. 

"  A  Boy  !  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Jaffrey,  explosively. 

"  By  all  means,  certainly,  a  son." 

"  Great  trouble  about  naming  the  boy.  Mehet- 
abel's family  want  him  named  Elkanah  Elkins, 
after  her  grandfather ;  I  want  him  named  An- 


170  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

drew  Jackson.  We  compromise  by  christening 
him  Elkanah  Elkins  Andrew  Jackson  Jaffrey. 
Rather  a  long  name  for  such  a  short  little  fel- 
low," said  Mr.  Jaffrey,  musingly. 

"  Andy  is  n't  a  bad  nickname,"  I  suggested. 

"  Not  at  all.  We  call  him  Andy,  in  the  family. 
Somewhat  fractious  at  first,  —  colic  and  things. 
I  suppose  it  is  right,  or  it  would  n't  be  so  ;  but 
the  usefulness  of  measles,  mumps,  croup,  whoop- 
ing-cough, scarlatina,  and  fits  is  not  visible  to 
the  naked  eye.  I  wish  Andy  would  be  a  model 
infant,  and  dodge  the  whole  lot." 

This  supposititious  child,  born  within  the  last 
few  minutes,  was  clearly  assuming  the  propor- 
tions of  a  reality  to  Mr.  Jaffrey.  I  began  to  feel 
a  little  uncomfortable.  I  am,  as  I  have  said,  a 
civil  engineer,  and  it  is  not  strictly  in  my  line  to 
assist  at  the  births  of  infants,  imaginary  or  other- 
wise. I  pulled  away  vigorously  at  the  pipe,  and 
said  nothing. 

"  What  large  blue  eyes  he  has,"  resumed  Mr. 
Jaffrey,  after  a  pause ;  "  just  like  Hetty's ;  and 
the  fair  hair,  too,  like  hers.  How  oddly  certain 
distinctive  features  are  handed  down  in  families  ! 
Sometimes  a  mouth,  sometimes  a  turn  of  the  eye- 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  171 

brow.     Wicked  little  boys,  over  at  K ,  have 

now  and  then  derisively  advised  me  to  follow  my 
nose.  It  would  be  an  interesting  thing  to  do.  I 
should  find  my  nose  flying  about  the  world,  turn- 
ing up  unexpectedly  here  and  there,  dodging  this 
branch  of  the  family  and  reappearing  in  that, 
now  jumping  over  one  great-grandchild  to  fasten 
itself  upon  another,  and  never  losing  its  indi- 
viduality. Look  at  Andy.  There  's  Elkanah  El- 
kins's  chin  to  the  life.  Andy's  chin  is  probably 
older  than  the  Pyramids.  Poor  little  thing,"  he 
cried,  with  sudden  indescribable  tenderness,  "  to 
lose  his  mother  so  early ! "  And  Mr.  Jaffrey's 
head  sunk  upon  his  breast,  and  his  shoulders 
slanted  forward,  as  if  he  were  actually  bending 
over  the  cradle  of  the  child.  The  whole  gesture 
and  attitude  was  so  natural  that  it  startled 'me. 
The  pipe  slipped  from  my  fingers  and  fell  to  the 
floor. 

"  Hush ! "  whispered  Mr.  Jaffrey,  with  a 
deprecating  motion  of  his  hand.  "  Andy  's 
asleep !  " 

He  rose  softly  from  the  chair  and,  walking 
across  the  room  on  tiptoe,  drew  down  the  shade 
at  the  window  through  which  the  moonlight  was 


173  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

streaming.  Then  he  returned  to  his  seat,  and 
remained  gazing  with  half-closed  eyes  into  the 
dropping  embers. 

I  refilled  my  pipe  and  smoked  in  profound 
silence,  wondering  what  would  come  next.  But 
nothing  came  next.  Mr.  Jaffrey  had  fallen  in- 
to so  brown  a  study  that,  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
afterwards,  when  I  wished  him  good  night 
and  withdrew,  I  do  not  think  he  noticed  my 
departure. 

I  am  not  what  is  called  a  man  of  imagination ; 
it  is  my  habit  to  exclude  most  things  not  capable 
of  mathematical  demonstration  ;  but  I  am  not 
without  a  certain  psychological  insight,  and  I 
think  I  understood  Mr.  Jaffrey 's  case.  I  could 
easily  understand  how  a  man  with  an  unhealthy, 
sensitive  nature,  overwhelmed  by  sudden  calam- 
ity, might  take  refuge  in  some  forlorn  place  like 
this  old  tavern,  and  dream  his  life  away.  To 
such  a  man  —  brooding  forever  on  what  might 
have  been  and  dwelling  wholly  in  the  realm  of 
his  fancies  —  the  actual  world  might  indeed  be- 
come as  a  dream,  and  nothing  seem  real  but  his 
illusions.  I  dare  say  that  thirteen  years  of  Bay- 
ley's  Four-Corners  would  have  its  effect  upon 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  173 

me ;  though  instead  of  conjuring  up  golden-haired 
children  of  the  Madonna,  I  should  probably  see 
gnomes  and  kobolds,  and  goblins  engaged  in 
hoisting  false  signals  and  misplacing  switches  for 
midnight  express  trains. 

"  No  doubt,"  I  said  to  myself  that  night,  as  I 
lay  in  bed,  thinking  over  the  matter,  "  this  once 
possible  but  now  impossible  child  is  a  great  com- 
fort to  the  old  gentleman,  —  a  greater  comfort, 
perhaps,  than  a  real  son  would  be.  May  be 
Andy  will  vanish  with  the  shades  and  mists  of 
night,  he  's  such  an  unsubstantial  infant ;  but  if 
he  does  n't,  and  Mr.  Jaffrey  finds  pleasure  in 
talking  to  me  about  his  son,  I  shall  humor  the 
old  fellow.  It  would  n't  be  a  Christian  act  to 
knock  over  his  harmless  fancy." 

I  was  very  impatient  to  see  if  Mr.  Jaffrey's 
illusion  would  stand  the  test  of  daylight.  It  did. 
Elkanah  Elkins  Andrew  Jackson  Jaffrey  was,  so 
to  speak,  alive  and  kicking  the  next  morning. 
On  taking  his  seat  at  the  breakfast-table,  Mr. 
Jaffrey  whispered  to  me  that  Andy  had  had  a 
comfortable  night. 

"  Silas  !  "  said  Mr.  Sewell,  sharply,  "  what  are 
you  whispering  about  ? " 


174  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

Mr.  Sewell  was  in  an  ill-humor  ;  perhaps  he 
was  jealous  because  I  had  passed  the  evening  in 
Mr.  Jaffrey's  room ;  but  surely  Mr.  Sewell  could 
not  expect  his  boarders  to  go  to  bed  at  eight 
o'clock  every  night,  as  he  did.  Prom  time  to 
time  during  the  meal  Mr.  Sewell  regarded  me 
unkindly  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye,  and  in 
helping  me  to  the  parsnips  he  poniarded  them 
with  quite  a  suggestive  air.  All  this,  however, 
did  not  prevent  me  from  repairing  to  the  door  of 
Mr.  Jaffrey's  snuggery  when  night  came. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Jaffrey,  how  's  Andy  this  even- 
ing?" 

"  Got  a  tooth !  "  cried  Mr.  Jaffrey,  vivaciously. 

"  No ! " 

"  Yes,  he  has  I  Just  through.  Gave  the  nurse 
a  silver  dollar.    Standing  reward  for  first  tooth." 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue  to  express  sur- 
prise that  an  infant  a  day  old  should  cut  a  tooth, 
when  I  suddenly  recollected  that  Richard  III. 
was  born  with  teeth.  Feeling  myself  to  be  on 
unfamiliar  ground,  I  suppressed  my  criticism.  It 
was  well  I  did  so,  for  in  the  next  breath  I  was 
advised  that  half  a  year  had  elapsed  since  the 
previous  evening. 


MISS    MKIIETABEL  S    SON.  175 

"  Andy  's  had  a  hard  six  months  of  it,"  said 
Mr.  Jaffrey,  with  the  well-known  narrative  air 
of  fathers.  "  We  've  brought  him  up  by  hand. 
His  grandfatlier,  by  the  way,  was  brought  up  by 
the  bottle  "  —  and  brought  down  by  it,  too,  I 
added  mentally,  recalling  Mr.  Sewell's  account 
of  the  old  gentleman's  tragic  end. 

Mr.  Jaffrey  then  went  on  to  give  me  a  history 
of  Andy's  first  six  months,  omitting  no  detail 
however  insignificant  or  irrelevant.  This  history 
I  would,  in  turn,  inflict  upon  the  reader,  if  I  were 
only  certain  that  he  is  one  of  those  dreadful 
parents  w^lio,  under  the  aegis  of  friendship,  bore 
you  at  a  street-corner  with  that  remarkable  thing 
which  Freddy  said  the  other  day,  and  insist  on 
singing  to  you,  at  an  evening  party,  the  Iliad  of 
Tommy's  woes. 

But  to  inflict  this  enfantillage  upon  the  un- 
married reader  would  be  an  act  of  wanton  cru- 
elty. So  I  pass  over  that  part  of  Andy's  biog- 
raphy, and,  for  the  same  reason,  make  no  record 
of  the  next  four  or  five  interviews  I  had  with 
Mr.  Jaffrey.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  state  that 
Andy  glided  from  extreme  infancy  to  early  youth 
with  astonishing  celerity,  —  at  the  rate  of  one 


176  MISS    MEHETABEL S    SON. 

year  per  night,  if  I  remember  correctly;  and-- 
must  I  confess  it  ?  —  before  the  week  came  to 
an  end,  this  invisible  hobgoblin  of  a  boy  was 
only  little  less  of  a  reality  to  me  than  to  Mr. 
Jaffrey. 

At  first  I  had  lent  myself  to  the  old  dreamer's 
whim  with  a  keen  perception  of  the  humor  of  the 
thing ;  but  by  and  by  I  found  I  was  talking  and 
thinking  of  Miss  Mehetabel's  son  as  though  he 
were  a  veritable  personage.  Mr.  Jaffrey  spoke 
of  the  child  with  such  an  air  of  conviction !  —  as 
if  Andy  were  playing  among  his  toys  in  the  next 
room,  or  making  mud-pies  down  in  the  yard.  In 
these  conversations,  it  should  be  observed,  the 
child  was  never  supposed  to  be  present,  except 
on  that  single  occasion  when  Mr.  Jaffrey  leaned 
over  the  cradle.  After  one  of  our  seances  I 
would  lie  awake  until  the  small  hours,  thinking 
of  the  boy,  and  then  fall  asleep  only  to  have  in- 
digestible dreams  about  him.  Through  the  day, 
and  sometimes  in  the  midst  of  complicated  calcu- 
lations, I  would  catch  myself  wondering  what 
Andy  was  up  to  now  !  There  was  no  shaking 
him  off  ;  he  became  an  inseparable  nightmare  to 
me ;  and  I  felt  that  if  I  remained  much  longer 


MISS    MEIIETABEl's    SOX.  177 

at  Bayley's  Four-Corners  I  should  turn  into  just 
Bucli  another  bald-headed,  mild-eyed  visionary  as 
Silas  Jaffrey. 

Then  the  tavern  was  a  grewsome  old  shell  any 
way,  full  of  unaccountable  noises  after  dark,  — 
rustlings  of  garments  along  unfrequented  pas- 
sages, and  stealthy  footfalls  in  unoccupied  cham- 
bers overhead.  I  never  knew  of  an  old  house 
without  these  mysterious  noises.  Next  to  my 
bedroom  was  a  musty,  dismantled  apartment,  in 
one  corner  of  which,  leaning  against  the  wain- 
scot, was  a  crippled  mangle,  with  its  iron  crank 
tilted  in  the  air  like  the  elbow  of  the  late  Mr. 
Clem  Jaffrey.     Sometimes, 

"  In  the  dead  vast  and  middle  of  the  night," 

I  used  to  hear  sounds  as  if  some  one  were  turn- 
ing that  rusty  crank  on  the  sly.  This  occurred 
only  on  particularly  cold  nights,  and  I  conceived 
the  uncomfortable  idea  tliat  it  was  the  thin  family 
ghosts,  from  the  neglected  graveyard  in  the  corn- 
field, keeping  themselves  warm  by  running  each 
other  through  the  mangle.  There  was  a  haunted 
air  about  the  whole  place  that  made  it  easy  for 
me  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  phantasm  like 

8*  L 


178  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

Miss  Mehetabel's  son,  who,  after  all,  was  less 
unearthly  than  Mr.  Jaffrey  himself,  and  seemed 
more  properly  an  inhabitant  of  this  globe  than 
the  toothless  ogre  who  kept  the  inn,  not  to  men- 
tion the  silent  Witch  of  Endor  that  cooked  our 
meals  for  us  over  the  bar-room  fire. 

In  spite  of  the  scowls  and  winks  bestowed 
upon  me  by  Mr.  Sewell,  who  let  slip  no  oppor- 
tunity to  testify  his  disapprobation  of  the  intima- 
cy, Mr.  Jaffrey  and  I  spent  all  our  evenings  to- 
gether, —  those  long  autumnal  evenings,  through 
the  length  of  which  he  talked  about  the  boy,  lay- 
ing out  his  path  in  life  and  hedging  the  path  with 
roses.  He  should  be  sent  to  the  High  School  at 
Portsmouth,  and  then  to  college ;  he  should  be 
educated  like  a  gentleman,  Andy. 

"  When  the  old  man  dies,"  said  Mr.  Jaffrey, 
rubbing  his  hands  gleefully,  as  if  it  were  a  great 
joke,  "  Andy  will  find  that  the  old  man  has  left 
him  a  pretty  plum." 

"  What  do  you  think  of  having  Andy  enter 
West  Point,  when  he  's  old  enough  ?  "  said  Mr. 
Jaffrey  on  another  occasion.  "  He  need  n't  neces- 
sarily go  into  the  army  when  he  graduates  ;  he 
can  become  a  civil  engineer." 


MISS  meiietabel's  son.  179 

This  was  a  stroke  of  flattery  so  delicate  and 
indirect  that  I  could  accept  it  without  immod- 
esty. 

There  had  lately  sprung  up  on  the  corner  of 
Mr.  Jaffrey's  bureau  a  small  tin  house,  Gothic  in 
architecture,  and  pink  in  color,  with  a  slit  in  the 
roof,  and  the  word  Bank  painted  on  one  fagade. 
Several  times  in  the  course  of  an  evening  Mr. 
Jaffrey  would  rise  from  his  chair  without  inter- 
rupting the  conversation,  and  gravely  drop  a 
nickel  into  the  scuttle  of  the  bank.  It  was  pleas- 
ant to  observe  the  solemnity  of  his  countenance 
as  he  approached  the  edifice,  and  the  air  of 
triumph  with  which  he  resumed  his  seat  by  the 
fireplace.  One  night  I  missed  the  tin  bank.  It 
had  disappeared,  deposits  and  all.  Evidently 
there  had  been  a  defalcation  on  rather  a  large 
scale.  I  strongly  suspected  that  Mr.  Sewell  was 
at  the  bottom  of  it ;  but  my  suspicion  was  not 
shared  by  Mr.  Jaffrey,  who,  remarking  my  glance 
at  the  bureau,  became  suddenly  depressed.  "  1  'm 
afraid,"  he  said,  "  that  I  have  failed  to  instil  into 
Andrew  those  principles  of  integrity  which  — 
which — "  and  the  old  gentleman  quite  broke 
down. 


180  MISS    MEHETABEL  S    SON. 

Andy  was  now  eight  or  nine  years  old,  and  for 
some  time  past,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  had 
given  Mr.  Jaffrey  no  inconsiderable  trouble ; 
what  with  his  impislmess  and  his  illnesses,  the 
boy  led  the  pair  of  us  a  lively  dance.  I  shall  not 
soon  forget  the  anxiety  of  Mr.  Jaffrey  the  night 
Andy  had  the  scarlet-fever,  —  an  anxiety  which 
so  infected  me  that  I  actually  returned  to  the 
tavern  the  following  afternoon  earlier  than  usual, 
dreading  to  hear  the  little  spectre  was  dead,  and 
greatly  relieved  on  meeting  Mr.  Jaffrey  at  the 
door-step  with  his  face  wreathed  in  smiles. 
When  I  spoke  to  him  of  Andy,  I  was  made  aware 
that  I  was  inquiring  into  a  case  of  scarlet-fever 
that  had  occurred  the  year  before ! 

It  was  at  this  time,  towards  the  end  of  my 
second  week  at  Greenton,  that  I  noticed  what 
was  probably  not  a  new  trait,  —  Mr.  Jaffrey's 
curious  sensitiveness  to  atmospherical  changes. 
He  was  as  sensitive  as  a  barometer.  The 
approach  of  a  storm  sent  his  mercury  down 
instantly.  When  the  weather  was  fair,  he  was 
hopeful  and  sunny,  and  Andy's  prospects  were 
brilliant.  When  the  weather  was  overcast  and 
threatening,   he   grew   restless   and  despondent, 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  181 

and  was  afraid  the  boy  was  n't  going  to  turn  out 
well. 

On  the  Saturday  previous  to  my  departure, 
which  had  been  fixed  for  Monday,  it  rained  heav- 
ily all  the  afternoon,  and  that  night  Mr.  Jaffrey 
was  in  an  unusually  excitable  and  unhappy  frame 
of  mind.     His  mercury  was  very  low  indeed. 

"  That  boy  is  going  to  the  dogs  just  as  fast  as 
he  can  go,"  said  Mr.  Jaffrey,  with  a  woful  face. 
"  I  can't  do  anything  with  him." 

"  He  '11  come  out  all  right,  Mr.  Jaffrey.  Boys 
will  be  boys.  I  would  not  give  a  snap  for  a  lad 
without  animal  spirits." 

"  But  animal  spirits,"  said  Mr.  Jaffrey  senten- 
tiously,  "  should  n't  saw  off  the  legs  of  the  piano 
in  Tobias's  best  parlor.  I  don't  know  what  To- 
bias will  say  when  he  finds  it  out." 

"  What !  has  Andy  sawed  off  the  legs  of  the  old 
spinet  ?  "  I  returned,  laughing. 

"  Worse  than  that." 

"  Played  upon  it,  then  !  " 

"No,  sir.     He  has  lied  to  me !  " 

"  I  can't  believe  that  of  Andy." 

"  Lied  to  me,  sir,"  repeated  Mr.  Jaffrey,  severe- 
ly.    "  He  pledged  me  his  word  of  honor  that  he 


182  MISS  mehetabel's  sok. 

would  give  over  his  climbing.  The  way  that  boy 
climbs  sends  a  chill  down  my  spine.  This  morn- 
ing,  notwithstanding  his  solemn  promise,  he 
shinned  up  the  lightning-rod  attached  to  the 
extension  and  sat  astride  the  ridge-pole.  I  saw 
him,  and  he  denied  it !  When  a  boy  you  have 
caressed  and  indulged,  and  lavished  pocket-money 
on,  hes  to  you  and  will  cHmb,  then  there  's 
nothing  more  to  be  said.     He  's  a  lost  child." 

"  You  take  too  dark  a  view  of  it,  Mr.  Jaffrey. 
Training  and  education  are  bound  to  tell  in  the 
end,  and  he  has  been  well  brought  up." 

"  But  I  did  n't  bring  him  up  on  a  lightning- 
rod,  did  I  ?  If  he  is  ever  going  to  know  how  to 
behave,  he  ought  to  know  now.  To-morrow  he 
will  be  eleven  years  old." 

The  reflection  came  to  me  that  if  Andy  had 
not  been  brought  up  by  the  rod,  he  had  certainly 
been  brought  up  by  the  lightning.  He  was  eleven 
years  old  in  two  weeks  ! 

I  essayed,  with  that  perspicacious  wisdom 
which  seems  to  be  the  peculiar  property  of 
bachelors  and  elderly  maiden  ladies,  to  tran- 
quillize Mr.  Jaffrey's  mind,  and  to  give  him 
some  practical  hints  on  the  management  of  youth. 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  183 

"  Spank  him,"  I  suggested  at  length. 

"  I  will !  "  said  the  old  gentleman. 

"  And  you  'd  better  do  it  at  once !  "  I  added, 
as  it  flashed  upon  me  that  in  six  months  Andy 
would  be  a  hundred  and  forty-three  years  old !  — 
an  age  at  which  parental  discipline  would  have 
to  be  relaxed. 

The  next  morning,  Sunday,  the  rain  came 
down  as  if  determined  to  drive  the  quicksilver 
entirely  out  of  my  poor  friend.  Mr.  Jaffrey  sat 
bolt  upright  at  the  breakfast-table,  looking  as 
woe-begone  as  a  bust  of  Dante,  and  retired  to 
his  chamber  the  moment  the  meal  was  finished. 
As  the  day  advanced,  the  wind  veered  round  to 
the  northeast,  and  settled  itself  down  to  work. 
It  was  not  pleasant  to  think,  and  I  tried  not  to 
think,  what  Mr.  Jaffrey's  condition  would  be  if 
the  weather  did  not  mend  its  manners  by  noon  ; 
but  so  far  from  clearing  off  at  noon,  the  storm 
increased  in  violence,  and  as  night  set  in,  the 
wind  whistled  in  a  spiteful  falsetto  key,  and  the 
rain  lashed  the  old  tavern  as  if  it  were  a  balky 
horse  that  refused  to  move  on.  The  windows 
rattled  in  the  worm-eaten  frames,  and  the  doors 
of    remote    rooms,   where    nobody    ever    went, 


184  MISS  mehetabel's  son. 

slammed  to  in  the  maddest  way.  Now  and  then 
the  tornado,  sweeping  down  the  side  of  Mount 
Agamenticus,  bowled  across  the  open  country, 
and  struck  the  ancient  hostelry  point-blank. 

Mr.  Jaffrey  did  not  appear  at  supper.  I  knew 
he  was  expecting  me  to  come  to  his  room  as 
usual,  and  I  turned  over  in  my  mind  a  dozen 
plans  to  evade  seeing  him  that  night.  The  land- 
lord sat  at  the  opposite  side  of  the  chimney-place, 
with  his  eye  upon  me.  I  fancy  he  was  aware  of 
the  effect  of  this  storm  on  his  other  boarder,  for 
at  intervals,  as  the  wind  hurled  itself  against  the 
exposed  gable,  threatening  to  burst  in  the  windows, 
Mr.  Sewell  tipped  me  an  atrocious  wink,  and 
displayed  his  gums  in  a  way  he  had  not  done 
since  the  morning  after  my  arrival  at  Greenton. 
I  wondered  if  he  suspected  anything  about  Andy. 
There  had  been  odd  times  during  the  past  week 
when  I  felt  convinced  that  the  existence  of  Miss 
Mehetabel's  son  was  no  secret  to  Mr.  Sewell. 

In  deference  to  the  gale,  the  landlord  sat  up 
half  an  hour  later  than  was  his  custom.  At  half 
past  eight  he  went  to  bed,  remarking  that  he 
thought  the  old  pile  would  stand  till  morning. 

He  had  been  absent  only  a  few  minutes  when 


MISS  mehetabel's  son.  185 

I  heard  a  rustling  at  the  door.  I  looked  up,  and 
beheld  Mr.  Jaffrey  standing  on  the  threshold, 
with  his  dress  in  disorder,  his  scant  hair  flying, 
and  the  wildest  expression  on  his  face. 

"  He  's  gone  !  "  cried  Mr.  Jaffrey. 

"  Who  ?    Sewell  ?     Yes,  he  just  went  to  bed." 

''  No,  not  Tobias,  —  the  boy  !  " 

"  What,  run  away  ?  " 

"No,  —  he  is  dead  !  He  has  fallen  off  of  a 
step-ladder  in  the  red  chamber  and  broken  his 
neck  !  " 

Mr.  Jaffrey  threw  up  his  hands  with  a  gesture 
of  despair,  and  disappeared.  I  followed  him 
through  the  hall,  saw  him  go  into  his  own  apart- 
ment, and  heard  the  bolt  of  the  door  drawn  to. 
Then  I  returned  to  the  bar-room,  and  sat  for  an 
hour  or  two  in  the  ruddy  glow  of  the  fire,  brood- 
ing over  the  strange  experience  of  the  last  fort- 
night. 

On  my  way  to  bed  I  paused  at  Mr.  Jaffrey' s 
door,  and,  in  a  lull  of  the  storm,  the  measured 
respiration  within  told  me  that  the  old  gentleman 
was  sleeping  peacefully. 

Slumber  was  coy  with  me  that  night.  I  lay 
listening  to  the  soughing  of  the  wind,  and  think- 


186  MISS    MEHETABEL  S    SON". 

ing  of  Mr.  Jaffrey's  illusion.  It  had  amused  me 
at  first  with  its  grotesqueness  ;  but  now  the  poor 
little  phantom  was  dead,  I  was  conscious  that 
there  had  been  something  pathetic  in  it  all  along. 
Shortly  after  midnight  the  wind  sunk  down,  com- 
ing and  going  fainter  and  fainter,  floating  around 
the  eaves  of  the  tavern  with  a  gentle,  murmurous 
sound,  as  if  it  were  turning  itself  into  soft  wings 
to  bear  away  the  spirit  of  a  little  child. 

Perhaps  nothing  that  happened  during  my  stay 
at  Bayley's  Four-Corners  took  me  so  completely 
by  surprise  as  Mr.  Jaffrey's  radiant  countenance 
the  next  morning.  The  morning  itself  was  not 
fresher  or  sunnier.  His  round  face  literally 
shone  with  geniality  and  happiness.  His  eyes 
twinkled  like  diamonds,  and  the  magnetic  light 
of  his  hair  was  turned  on  full.  He  came  into 
my  room  while  I  was  packing  my  valise.  He 
chirped,  and  prattled,  and  carolled,  and  was  sorry 
I  was  going  away,  —  but  never  a  word  about 
Andy.  However,  the  boy  had  probably  been  dead 
several  years  then ! 

The  open  wagon  that  was  to  carry  me  to  the 
station  stood  at  the  door;  Mr.  Sewell  was  placing 


MISS    MEHETABEL  S    SON.  187 

my  case  of  instruments  under  the  seat,  and  Mr. 
Juffrey  had  gone  up  to  his  room  to  get  me  a  cer- 
tain ne^Yspaper  containing  an  account  of  a  re- 
markable sliipwreck  on  the  Auckland  Islands.  I 
took  the  opportunity  to  thank  Mr.  Sewell  for  his 
courtesies  to  me,  and  to  express  my  regret  at 
leaving  him  and  Mr.  Jaffrey. 

J'  I  have  become  very  much  attached  to  Mr. 
Jaffrey,"  I  said  ;  "  he  is  a  most  interesting  per- 
son ;  but  that  hypothetical  boy  of  his,  that  son 
of  Miss  Mehetabel's  —  " 

*'  Yes,  I  know  !  "  interrupted  Mr.  Sewell,  test- 
ily. "  Fell  off  a  step-ladder  and  broke  his  dratted 
neck.  Eleven  year  old,  was  n't  he  ?  Always 
does,  jest  at  that  point.  Next  week  Silas  will 
begin  the  whole  thing  over  again,  if  he  can  get 
anybody  to  listen  to  him." 

"  I  see.  Our  amiable  friend  is  a  little  queer 
on  that  subject." 

Mr.  Sewell  glanced  cautiously  over  his  shoul- 
der, and,  tapping  himself  significantly  on  the 
forehead,  said  in  a  low  voice, 

"  Room  To  Let  — Unfurnished  !  " 


A  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE, 


/^NE  morning  as  I  was  passing  through  Boston 
^^  Common,  which  lies  between  my  home  and 
my  office,  I  met  a  gentleman  lounging  along  The 
Mall.  I  am  generally  preoccupied  when  walking, 
and  often  thrid  my  way  through  crowded  streets 
without  distinctly  obser^dng  any  one.  But  this 
man's  face  forced  itself  upon  me,  and  a  singular 
face  it  was.  His  eyes  were  faded,  and  his  hair, 
which  he  wore  long,  was  flecked  with  gray.  His 
hair  and  eyes,  if  I  may  say  so,  were  sixty 
years  old,  the  rest  of  him  not  thirty.  The  youth- 
fulness  of  his  figure,  the  elasticity  of  his  gait,  and 
the  venerable  appearance  of  his  head  were  incon- 
gruities that  drew  more  than  one  pair  of  curious 
eyes  towards  him.  He  excited  in  me  the  painful 
suspicion  that  he  had  either  got  somebody  else'a 
head  or  somebody  else's  body.  He  was  evident 
ly  an  American,  at  least  so  far  as  the  upper  part 


A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE.  189 

of  him  was  concerned,  —  the  New  England  cut 
of  countenance  is  unmistakable,  —  evidently  a 
man  who  had  seen  something  of  the  world, 
but  strangely  young  and  old. 

Before  reaching  the  Park  Street  gate,  I  had 
taken  up  the  thread  of  tliought  which  he  had  un- 
consciously broken  ;  yet  throughout  the  day  this 
old  young  man,  with  his  unwrinkled  brow  and 
silvered  locks,  glided  in  like  a  phantom  between 
me  and  my  duties. 

The  next  morning  I  again  encountered  him  on 
The  Mall.  He  was  resting  lazily  on  the  green 
rails,  watching  two  little  sloops  in  distress,  which 
two  ragged  ship-owners  had  consigned  to  the 
mimic  perils  of  the  Pond.  The  vessels  lay  be- 
calmed in  the  middle  of  the  ocean,  displaying 
a  tantalizing  lack  of  sympathy  with  the  frantic 
helplessness  of  the  owners  on  shore.  As  the 
gentleman  observed  their  dilemma,  a  light  came 
into  his  faded  eyes,  then  died  out,  leaving  them 
drearier  than  before.  I  wondered  if  he,  too, 
in  his  time,  had  sent  out  ships  that  drifted  and 
drifted  and  never  came  to  port ;  and  if  these  poor 
toys  were  to  him  types  of  his  own  losses. 

"  That  man  has  a  story,  and  I  should  like  to 


190  A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE. 

know  it,"  I  said,  half  aloud,  halting  in  on^  oi 
those  winding  paths  which  branch  off  from  the 
pastoral  quietness  of  the  Pond,  and  end  in  the 
rush  and  tumult  of  Tremont  Street. 

"  Would  you  ?  "  exclaimed  a  voice  at  my  side. 

I  turned  and  faced   Mr.   H ,  a  neighbor  of 

mine,  who  laughed  heartily  at  finding  me  talking 
to  myself.  "  Well,"  he  added,  reflectingly,  "  I 
can  tell  you  this  man's  story ;  and  if  you  will 
match  the  narrative  with  anything  as  curious,  I 
shall  be  glad  to  hear  it." 

"  You  know  him  then  ?  " 

"  Yes  and  no.  That  is  to  say,  I  do  not  know 
him  personally ;  but  I  know  a  singular  passage 
in  his  life.  I  happened  to  be  in  Paris  when 
he  was  buried." 

"  Buried  ! " 

"  Well,  strictly  speaking,  not  buried  ;  but  some- 
thing quite  like  it.    If  you  've  a  spare  half -hour," 

continued  my  friend  H ,  "  we  '11  sit  on  this 

bench,  and  I  will  tell  you  all  I  know  of  an  affair 
that  made  some  noise  in  Paris  a  couple  of  years 
ago.  The  gentleman  himself,  standing  yonder, 
will  serve  as  a  sort  of  frontispiece  to  the  romance, 
—  a  full-page  illustration,  as  it  were." 


A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE.  191 

The  following  pages  contain  the  story  which 

Mr.  H related  to  me.     While  he  was  telling 

it,  a  gentle  wind  arose ;  the  miniature  sloops 
drifted  feebly  about  the  ocean ;  the  wretched 
owners  flew  from  point  to  point,  as  the  deceptive 
breeze  promised  to  waft  the  barks  to  either  shore  ; 
the  early  robins  trilled  now  and  then  from  the 
newly  fringed  elms ;  and  the  old  young  man 
leaned  on  the  rail  in  the  sunshine,  little  dream- 
ing that  two  gossips  were  discussing  his  affairs 
within  twenty  yards  of  him. 

Three  persons  were  sitting  in  a  chamber  whose 
one  large  window  overlooked  the  Place  Vendome. 
M.  Dorine,  with  his  back  half  turned  on  the 
other  two  occupants  of  the  apartment,  was  read- 
ing the  Journal  des  Debats  in  an  alcove,  pausing 
from  time  to  time  to  wipe  his  glasses,  and  taking 
scrupulous  pains  not  to  glance  towards  the  lounge 
at  his  right,  on  which  were  seated  Mile.  Dorine 
and  a  young  American  gentleman,  whose  hand- 
some face  rather  frankly  told  his  position  in  the 
family.  There  was  not  a  happier  man  in  Paris 
that  afternoon  than  Philip  Wentworth.  Life 
had  become  so  delicious  to  him  that  he  shrunk 


192  A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE. 

from  looking  beyond  to-day.  What  could  the 
future  add  to  his  full  heart?  what  might  it  not 
take  away  ?  The  deepest  joy  has  always  some- 
thing of  melancholy  in  it,  —  a  presentiment,  a 
fleeting  sadness,  a  feeling  without  a  name.  Went- 
worth  was  conscious  of  this  subtile  shadow  that 
night,  when  he  rose  from  the  lounge  and  thought- 
fully held  Julie's  hand  to  his  lip  for  a  moment 
before  parting.  A  careless  observer  would  not 
have  thought  him,  as  he  was,  the  happiest  man 
in  Paris. 

M.  Dorine  laid  down  his  paper,  and  came  for- 
ward. "  If  the  house,"  he  said,  "  is  such  as 
M.  Cherbonneau  describes  it,  I  advise  you  to 
close  with  him  at  once.  I  would  accompany 
you,  Philip,  but  the  truth  is,  I  am  too  sad  at 
losing  this  little  bird  to  assist  you  in  selecting 
a  cage  for  her.  Remember,  the  last  train  for 
town  leaves  at  five.  Be  sure  not  to  miss  it ; 
for  we  have  seats  for  Sardou's  new  comedy 
to-morrow  night.  By  to-morrow  night,"  he 
added  laughingly,  "  little  Julie  here  will  be  an 
old  lady,  —  't  is  such  an  age  from  now  until 
then." 

The  next  morning  the  train  bore  Philip  to  one 


A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE.  193 

of  the  loveliest  spots  within  thirty  miles  of  Paris. 
An  hour's  walk  through  green  lanes  brought  him 
to  M.  Cherbonneau's  estate.  In  a  kind  of  dream 
the  young  man  wandered  from  room  to  room,  in- 
spected the  conservatory,  the  stables,  the  lawns, 
the  strip  of  woodland  through  which  a  merry 
brook  sang  to  itself  continually ;  and,  after  din- 
ing with  M.  Cherbonneau,  completed  the  pur- 
chase, and  turned  his  steps  towards  the  station 
just  in  time  to  catch  the  express  train. 

As  Paris  stretched  out  before  him,  w?.th  its 
hghts  twinkling  in  the  early  dusk,  and  its  spires 
and  domes  melting  into  the  evening  air,  it 
seemed  to  Philip  as  if  years  had  elapsed  since 
he  left  the  city.  On  reaching  Paris  he  drove  to 
his  h6tel,  where  he  found  several  letters  lying  on 
the  table.  He  did  not  trouble  himself  even  to 
glance  at  their  superscriptions  as  he  threw 
aside  his  travelling  surtout  for  a  more  appropriate! 
dress. 

If,  in  his  impatience  to  return  to  Mile.  Dorine. 
the  cars  had  appeared  to  walk,  the  fiacre  which 
he  had  secured  at  the  station  appeared  to  creep. 
At  last  it  turned  into  the  Place  Yendome,  and 
drew  up  before  M.  Dorine's  hotel.      The  door 


194  A    STRUGGLE    YOU    LIFE. 

opened  as  Philip's  foot  touched  the  first  step. 
The  servant  silently  took  his  cloak  and  hat,  with 
a  special  deference,  Philip  thought ;  but  was  he 
not  now  one  of  the  family  ? 

"  M.  Dorine,"  said  the  servant  slowly,  "  is  un- 
able to  see  Monsieur  at  present.  He  wishes 
Monsieur  to  be  shown  up  to  the  salon." 

"  Is  Mademoiselle  —  " 

"  Yes,  Monsieur." 

"  Alone  ?  " 

"  Alone,  Monsieur,"  repeated  the  man,  looking 
curiously  at  Philip,  who  could  scarcely  repress  an 
exclamation  of  pleasure. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  such  a  privilege  had 
been  accorded  him..  His  interviews  with  Julie 
had  always  taken  place  in  the  presence  of  M. 
Dorine,  or  some  member  of  the  household.  A 
well-bred  Parisian  girl  has  but  a  formal  acquaint- 
ance with  her  lover. 

Philip  did  not  linger  on  the  staircase  ;  with 
a  light  heart,  he  went  up  the  steps,  two  at  a 
time,  hastened  through  the  softly  lighted  hall, 
in  which  he  detected  the  faint  scent  of  her  fa- 
vorite flowers,  and  stealthily  opened  the  door  of 
the  salon. 


A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE.  193 

The  room  was  darkened.  Underneath  tlie 
chandelier  stood  a  slim  black  casket  on  trestles. 
A  lighted  candle,  a  crucifix,  and  some  white 
flowers  were  on  a  table  near  by.  Julie  Dorine 
was  dead. 

When  M.  Dorine  heard  the  sudden  cry  that 
rang  through  the  silent  house,  he  hurried  from 
the  library,  and  found  Philip  standing  like  a 
ghost  in  the  middle  of  the  chamber. 

It  was  not  until  long  afterwards  that  Went- 
worth  learned  the  details  of  the  calamity  that 
had  befallen  him.  On  the  previous  night  Mile. 
Dorine  had  retired  to  her  room  in  seemingly  per- 
fect health,  and  had  dismissed  her  maid  with  a 
request  to  be  awakened  early  the  next  morning. 
At  the  appointed  hour  the  girl  entered  the  cham- 
ber. Mile.  Dorine  was  sitting  in  an  arm-chair, 
apparently  asleep.  The  candle  in  the  bougcoir 
had  burnt  down  to  the  socket ;  a  book  lay  half 
open  on  the  carpet  at  her  feet.  The  girl  started 
when  she  saw  that  the  bed  had  not  been  oc- 
cupied, and  that  her  mistress  still  wore  an  even- 
ing dress.  She  rushed  to  Mile.  Dorine's  side. 
It  was  not  slumber;  it  was  death. 

Two  messages  were   at   once  despatched  to 


196  A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE. 

Philip,  one  to  the  station  at  G — — ,  the  other  to 
his  hotel.  The  first  missed  him  on  the  road,  the 
second  he  had  neglected  to  open.  On  his  ar- 
rival at  M.  Dorine's  house,  the  valet,  under  the 
supposition  that  Wentworth  had  been  advised 
of  Mile.  Dorine's  death,  broke  the  intelligence 
with  awkward  cruelty,  by  showing  him  directly 
to  the  salon. 

Mile.  Dorine's  wealth,  her  beauty,  the  sudden- 
ness of  her  death,  and  the  romance  that  had  in 
some  way  attached  itself  to  her  love  for  tlie 
young  American,  drew  crowds  to  witness  the 
funeral  ceremonies,  which  took  place  in  the 
church  in  the  rue  d'Aguesseau.  The  body  was 
to  be  laid  in  M.  Dorine's  tomb,  in  the  cemetery 
of  ^lontmartre. 

This  tomb  requires  a  few  words  of  description. 
First  there  was  a  grating  of  filigraned  iron; 
through  this  you  looked  into  a  small  vestibule 
or  hall,  at  the  end  of  which  was  a  massive  door 
of  oak  opening  upon  a  short  flight  of  stone  steps 
descending  into  the  tomb.  The  vault  was  fifteen 
or  twenty  feet  square,  ingeniously  ventilated  from 
the  ceiling,  but  unlighted.  It  contained  two  sar- 
cophagi: the  first  held  the  remains  of  Madame 


A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE.  197 

Dorine,  long  since  dead ;  the  other  was  new,  and 
bore  on  one  side  the  letters  J.  D.,  in  monogram, 
interwoven  with  fleurs-de-lis. 

The  funeral  train  stopped  at  the  gate  of  the 
small  garden  that  enclosed  the  place  of  burial, 
only  the  immediate  relatives  following  the  bearers 
into  the  tomb.  A  slender  wax  candle,  such  as 
is  used  in  Catholic  churches,  burnt  at  the  foot  of 
the  uncovered  sarcophagus,  casting  a  dim  glow 
over  the  centre  of  the  apartment,  and  deepening 
the  shadows  which  seemed  to  huddle  together  in 
the  corners.  By  this  flickering  light  the  coffin 
was  placed  in  its  granite  shell,  the  heavy  slab 
laid  over  it  reverently,  and  the  oaken  door  re- 
volved on  its  rusty  hinges,  shutting  out  the 
uncertain  ray  of  sunshine  that  had  ventured  to 
peep  in  on  the  darkness. 

M.  Dorine,  muffled  in  his  cloak,  threw  himself 
on  the  back  seat  of  the  landau,  too  abstracted  in 
his  grief  to  observe  that  he  was  the  only  occu- 
pan'  of  the  vehicle.  There  was  a  sound  of 
wheels  grating  on  the  gravelled  avenue,  and  then 
all  was  silence  again  in  the  cemetery  of  ^font- 
martre.  At  the  main  entrance  the  carriages 
parted  company,  dashing  off  into  various  streets 


198  A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE. 

at  a  pace  that  seemed  to  express  a  sense  of 
relief. 

The  rattle  of  wheels  had  died  out  of  the  air 
when  Philip  opened  his  eyes,  bewildered,  like  a 
man  abruptly  roused  from  slumber.  He  raised 
himself  on  one  arm  and  stared  into  the  surround- 
ing blackness.  Where  was  he  ?  In  a  second 
the  truth  flashed  upon  him.  He  had  been  left 
in  the  tomb !  While  kneeling  on  the  farther 
side  of  the  stone  box,  perhaps  he  had  fainted, 
and  during  the  last  solemn  rites  his  absence 
had  been  unnoticed. 

His  first  emotion  was  one  of  natural  terror. 
But  this  passed  as  quickly  as  it  came.  Life  had 
ceased  to  be  so  very  precious  to  him ;  and  if  it 
were  his  fate  to  die  at  Julie's  side,  was  not 
that  the  fulfilment  of  the  desire  which  he  had  ex- 
pressed to  himself  a  hundred  times  that  morning  ? 
What  did  it  matter,  a  few  years  sooner  or  later  ? 
He  must  lay  down  the  burden  at  last.  Why  not 
then?  A  pang  of  self-reproach  followed  the 
thought.  Could  he  so  lightly  throw  aside  the 
love  that  had  bent  over  his  cradle  ?  The  sacred 
name  of  mother  rose  involuntarily  to  his  lips. 
Was  it  not  cowardly  to  yield  up  without  a  strug« 


A    STRUGGLE    TO  It    LIFE.  199 

gle  the  life  which  he  should  guard  for  her  sake  ? 
Was  it  not  his  duty  to  the  living  and  the  dead  to 
face  the  difficulties  of  his  position,  and  overcome 
them  if  it  were  within  human  power  ? 

With  an  organization  as  delicate  as  a  woman's, 
he  had  that  spirit  which,  however  sluggish  in 
repose,  leaps  with  a  kind  of  exultation  to  meas- 
ure its  strength  with  disaster.  The  vague  fear 
of  the  supernatural,  that  would  affect  most  men 
in  a  similar  situation,  found  no  room  in  his 
heart.  He  was  simply  shut  in  a  chamber  from 
which  it  was  necessary  that  he  should'  obtain 
release  within  a  given  period.  That  this  chamber 
contahied  the  body  of  the  woman  he  loved,  so  far 
from  adding  to  the  terror  of  the  case,  was  a 
circumstance  from  which  he  drew  consolation. 
She  was  a  beautiful  white  statue  now.  Her  soul 
was  far  hence ;  and  if  that  pure  spirit  could 
return,  would  it  not  be  to  shield  him  with  her 
love?  It  was  impossible  that  the  place  should 
not  engender  some  thought  of  the  kind.  He  did 
not  put  the  thought  entirely  from  him  as  he  rose 
to  his  feet  and  stretched  out  his  hands  in  the 
darkness ;  but  his  mind  was  too  healthy  and 
practical  to  indulge  long  in  such  speculations. 


200  A    STRUGGLE    FOE    LIFE. 

Philip,  being  a  smoker,  chanced  to  have  in  his 
pocket  a  box  of  allumettes.  After  several  in- 
effectual essays,  he  succeeded  in  igniting  one 
against  the  dank  wall,  and  by  its  momentary 
glare  perceived  that  the  candle  had  been  left 
in  the  tomb.  This  would  serve  Mm  in  examining 
the  fastenings  of  the  vault.  If  he  could  force  the 
inner  door  by  any  means,  and  reach  the  grating, 
of  which  he  had  an  indistinct  recollection,  he 
might  hope  to  make  himself  heard.  But  the 
oaken  door  was  immovable,  as  solid  as  the  wall 
itself,  into  which  it  fitted  air-tight.  Even  if  he 
had  had  the  requisite  tools,  there  were  no  fasten- 
ings to  be  removed  ;  the  hinges  were  set  on  the 
outside. 

Having  ascertained  this,  Philip  replaced  the 
candle  on  the  floor,  and  leaned  against  the  wall 
thoughtfully,  watching  the  blue  fan  of  flame  that 
wavered  to  and  fro,  threatening  to  detach  itself 
from  the  wick.  "  At  all  events,"  he  thought, 
"  the  place  is  ventilated."  Suddenly  he  sprang 
forward  and  extinguished  the  light. 

His  existence  depended  on  that  candle ! 

He  had  read  somewhere,  in  some  account 
of  shipwreck,  how   the   survivors   had  lived  for 


A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE.  201 

days  upon  a  few  candles  which  one  of  the  pas- 
sengers had  insanely  thrown  into  the  long-boat. 
And  here  he  had  been  burning  away  his  very 
life! 

By  the  transient  illumination  of  one  of  the 
tapers,  he  looked  at  his  watcli..  It  had  stopped  at 
eleven,  —  but  eleven  that  day,  or  the  preceding 
night  ?  The  funeral,  he  knew,  had  left  the 
church  at  ten.  How  many  hours  had  passed 
since  then  ?  Of  what  duration  had  been  his 
swoon  ?  Alas !  it  was  no  longer  possible  for 
him  to  measure  those  hours  which  crawl  like 
snails  by  the  wretched,  and  fly  like  swallows  over 
the  happy. 

He  picked  up  the  candle,  and  seated  himself 
on  the  stone  steps.  He  was  a  sanguine  man, 
but,  as  he  weighed  the  chances  of  escape,  the 
prospect  appalled  him.  Of  course  he  would 
be  missed.  His  disappearance  under  the  cir- 
cumstances would  surely  alarm  his  friends  ;  they 
would  instigate  a  search  for  him ;  but  who  would 
think  of  searching  for  a  live  man  in  the  cemetery 
of  Montmartre  ?  The  prefet  of  police  would  set 
a  hundred  intelligences  at  work  to  find  him  ;  the 
Seine  might  be  dragged,  les  miserahles  turned 

9* 


302  A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE. 

over  at  the  Morgue  ;  a  minute  description  of  him 
would  be  in  every  detective's  pocket ;  and  he  — 
in  M.  Dorine's  family  tomb  ! 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  here  he  was  last 
seen  ;  from  this  point  a  keen  detective  would 
naturally  work  up  the  case.  Then  might  not  the 
undertaker  return  for  the  candlestick,  probably 
not  left  by  design?  Or,  again,  might  not  M. 
Dorine  send  fresh  wreaths  of  flowers,  to  take  the 
place  of  those  which  now  diffused  a  pungent, 
aromatic  odor  throughout  the  chamber  ?  Ah ! 
what  unlikely  chances  !  But  if  one  of  these 
things  did  not  happen  speedily,  it  had  better 
never  happen.  How  long  could  he  keep  life  in 
himself  ? 

With  his  pocket-knife  Wentworth  cut  the 
half-burned  candle  into  four  equal  parts.  "  To- 
night," he  meditated,  "  I  will  eat  the  first  of 
these  pieces  ;  to-morrow,  the  second  ;  to-morrow 
evening,  the  third;  the  next  day,  the  fourth; 
and  then  — then  I  '11  wait !  " 

He  had  taken  no  breakfast  that  morning,  un- 
less a  cup  of  coffee  can  be  called  a  breakfast. 
He  had  never  been  very  Imngry  before.  He  was 
ravenously  hungry  now.     But  he  postponed  the 


A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE.  203 

meal  as  long  as  practicable.  It  must  have  been 
near  midnight,  according  to  his  calculation,  when 
he  determined  to  try  the  first  of  his  four  singular 
repasts.  The  bit  of  white-wax  was  tasteless  ;  but 
it  served  its  purpose. 

His  appetite  for  the  time  appeased,  he  found  a 
new  discomfort.  The  humidity  of  the  walls,  and 
the  wind  that  crept  through  the  unseen  venti- 
lator, chilled  him  to  the  bone.  To  keep  walking 
was  his  only  resource.  A  kind  of  drowsiness, 
too,  occasionally  came  over  him.  It  took  all  his 
will  to  fight  it  off.  To  sleep,  he  felt,  was  to  die ; 
and  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  live. 

The  strangest  fancies  flitted  through  his  head 
as  he  groped  up  and  down  the  stone  floor  of 
the  dungeon,  feeling  his  way  along  the  wall 
to  avoid  the  sepulchres.  Voices  that  had  long 
been  silent  spoke  words  that  had  long  been  for- 
gotten ;  faces  he  had  known  in  childhood  grew 
palpable  against  the  dark.  His  whole  life  in  de- 
tail was  unrolled  before  him  like  a  panorama ;  the 
changes  of  a  year,  with  its  burden  of  love  and 
death,  its  sweets  and  its  bitternesses,  were  epit- 
omized in  a  single  second.  The  desire  to  sleep 
had  left  liim,  but  the  keen  hunger  came  again. 


204  A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE. 

It  must  be  near  morning  now,  he  mused  ;  per- 
haps the  sun  is  just  gilding  the  pinnacles  and 
domes  of  the  city ;  or,  may  be,  a  dull,  drizzling 
rain  is  beating  on  Paris,  sobbing  on  these  mounds 
above  me.  Paris !  it  seems  like  a  dream.  Did 
I  ever  walk  in  its  gay  boulevards  in  the  golden 
air  ?  0  the  delight  and  pain  and  passion  of  that 
sweet  human  life ! 

Philip  became  conscious  that  the  gloom,  the 
silence,  and  the  cold  were  gradually  conquering 
him.  The  feverish  activity  of  his  brain  brought 
on  a  reaction.  He  grew  lethargic,  he  sunk  down 
on  the  steps,  and  thought  of  nothing.  His  hand 
fell  by  chance  on  one  of  the  pieces  of  candle ;  he 
grasped  it  and  devoured  it  mechanically.  This 
revived  him.  "  How  strange,"  he  thought,  "  that 
I  am  not  tliirsty.  Is  it  possible  that  the  damp- 
ness of  the  walls,  which  I  must  inhale  with  every 
breath,  has  supplied  the  need  of  water  ?  Not  a 
drop  has  passed  my  lips  for  two  days,  and  still  I 
experience  no  thirst.  That  drowsiness,  thank 
Heaven,  has  gone.  I  think  I  was  never  wide 
awake  until  this  hour.  It  would  be  an  anodyne 
like  poison  that  could  weigh  down  my  eyelids. 
No  doubt  the  dread  of  sleep  has  something  to  do 
with  tliis." 


A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE.  205 

The  minutes  were  like  hours.  Now  he  walked 
as  briskly  as  he  dared  up  and  down  the  tomb ; 
now  he  rested  against  the  door.  More  than  once 
he  was  tempted  to  throw  himself  upon  the  stone 
coffin  that  held  Julie,  and  make  no  further  strug- 
gle for  his  life. 

Only  one  piece  of  candle  remained.  He  had 
eaten  the  third  portion,  not  to  satisfy  hunger, 
but  from  a  precautionary  motive.  He  had  taken 
it  as  a  man  takes  some  disagreeable  drug  upon 
the  result  of  which  hangs  safety.  The  time  was 
rapidly  approaching  when  even  this  poor  substi- 
tute for  nourishment  would  be  exhausted.  He 
delayed  that  moment.  He  gave  himself  a  long 
fast  this  time.  The  half -inch  of  candle  which  he 
held  in  his  hand  was  a  sacred  thing  to  him.  It 
was  his  last  defence  against  death. 

At  length,  with  such  a  sinking  at  heart  as  he 
had  not  known  before,  he  raised  it  to  his  lips. 
Then  he  paused,  then  he  hurled  the  fragment 
across  the  tomb,  then  the  oaken  door  was  flung 
open,  and  Philip,  with  dazzled  eyes,  saw  M. 
Dorine's  form  sharply  defined  against  the  blue 
sky. 

When  they  led  him  out,  half  blinded,  into  the 


206  A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE. 

broad  daylight,  M.  Dorine  noticed  that  Philip's 
hair,  which  a  short  time  since  was  as  black  as  a 
crow's  wing,  had  actually  turned  gray  in  places. 
The  man's  eyes,  too,  had  faded;  the  darkness 
had  dimmed  their  lustre. 

"  And  how  long  was  he  really  confined  in  the 

tomb?"   I  asked,  as  Mr.  H concluded  the 

story. 

"  Just  one  hour  and  tioenty  minutes  !  "  replied 
Mr.  H ,  smiling  blandly. 

As  he  spoke,  the  Lilliputian  sloops,  with  their 
sails  all  blown  out  like  white  roses,  came  floating 
bravely  into  port,  and  Philip  Wentworth  lounged 
by  us,  wearily,  in  the  pleasant  April  sunshine. 

Mr.  H 's  narrative  haunted  me.    Here  was 

a  man  who  had  undergone  a  strange  ordeal. 
Here  was  a  man  whose  sufferings  were  unique. 
His  was  no  threadbare  experience.  Eighty  min- 
utes had  seemed  like  two  days  to  him !  If  he  had 
really  been  immured  two  days  in  the  tomb,  the 
story,  from  my  point  of  view,  would  have  lost  its 
tragic  element. 

After  this  it  was  but  natural  I  should  regard 


A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE.  207 

Mr.  Weiitworth  with  deepened  curiosity.  As 
I  met  liim  from  day  to  day,  passing  through 
the  Common  with  that  same  introspective  air, 
there  was  something  in  his  lonehness  which 
touched  me.  I  wondered  that  I  had  not  read 
before  in  his  pale,  meditative  face  some  such  sad 

history  as  Mr.  H had  confided  to  me.      I 

formed  the  resolution  of  speaking  to  him,  though 
with  no  very  lucid  purpose.  One  morning  we 
came  face  to  face  at  the  intersection  of  two 
paths.  He  halted  courteously  to  allow  me  the 
precedence. 

"  Mr.  Wentworth,"  I  began,  "  I  —  " 

He  interrupted  me. 

"  My  name,  sir,"  he  said,  in  an  off-hand  man- 
ner, "  is  Jones." 

"  Jo- Jo- Jones !  "   I  gasped. 

"  No,  not  Joseph  Jones,"  he  returned,  with  a 
glacial  air,  "  Frederick." 

A  dim  light,  in  which  the  perfidy  of  my  friend 

H was  becoming  discernible,  began  to  break 

upon  my  mind. 

It  will  probably  be  a  standing  wonder  to  Mr. 
Frederick  Jones  why  a  strange  man  accosted  him 
one  morning  on  the  Common  as  "  Mr.  Went- 


208  A    STRUGGLE    FOR    LIFE. 

worth,"  and  then  dashed  madly  down  the  nearest 
foot-path  and  disappeared  in  the  crowd. 

The  fact  is,  I  had  been  duped  by  Mr.  H , 

who  is  a  gentleman  of  literary  proclivities,  and 
has,  it  is  whispered,  become  somewhat  demented 
in  brooding  over  the  Great  American  Novel,  — 
not  yet  hatched.  He  had  actually  tried  the  effect 
of  one  of  his  chapters  on  me ! 

My  hero,  as  I  subsequently  learned,  is  a  com- 
monplace young  person  who  had  some  connec- 
tion, I  do  not  know  what,  with  the  building  of 
that  graceful  granite  bridge  which  spans  the 
crooked  silver  lake  in  the  Public  Garden. 

When  I  think  of  the  readiness  with  which  Mr. 

H built  up  his  airy  fabric  on  my  credulity,  I 

feel  half  inclined  to  laugh,  though  I  am  deeply 
mortified  at  having  been  the  unresisting  victim 
of  his  Black  Art. 


MLLE.  OLYMPE  ZABRISKI 


TTTE  are  accustomed  to  speak  with  a  certain 
'  '  ligiit  irony  of  the  tendency  which  women 
have  to  gossip,  as  if  the  sin  itself,  if  it  is  a  sin, 
were  of  the  gentler  sex,  and  could  by  no  chance 
be  a  masculine  peccadillo.  So  far  as  my  observa- 
tion goes,  men  are  as  much  given  to  small  talk 
as  women,  and  it  is  undeniable  that  we  have 
produced  the  highest  type  of  gossiper  extant. 
Where  will  you  find,  in  or  out  of  literature,  such 
another  droll,  delightful,  chatty  busybody  as 
Samuel  Pepys,  Esq.,  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty 
in  the  reigns  of  those  fortunate  gentlemen 
Charles  II.  and  James  II.  of  England  ?  He  is 
the  king  of  tattlers,  as  Shakespeare  is  the  king 
of  poets. 

If  it  came  to  a  matter  of  pure  gossip,  I  would 
back  Our  Club  against  the  Sorosis  or  any  women's 


210  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI. 

club  in  existence.  Whenever  you  see  in  our 
drawing-room  four  or  five  young  fellows  lounging 
in  easy-chairs,  cigar  in  hand,  and  now  and  then 
bringing  their  heads  together  over  the  small 
round  Japanese  table  which  is  always  the  pivot 
of  these  social  circles,  you  may  be  sure  they  are 
discussing  Tom's  engagement,  or  Dick's  extrava- 
gance, or  Harry's  hopeless  passion  for  the 
younger  Miss  Fleurdelys.  It  is  here  that  old 
Tippleton  gets  execrated  for  that  everlasting  bon 
mot  of  his  which  was  quite  a  success  at  dinner- 
parties forty  years  ago  ;  it  is  here  the  belle  of  the 
season  passes  under  the  scalpels  of  merciless 
young  surgeons;  it  is  here  B's  financial  con- 
dition is  handled  in  a  way  that  would  make  B's 
hair  stand  on  end;  it  is  here,  in  short,  that  every- 
thing is  canvassed,  —  everything  that  happens  in 
our  set,  I  mean,  much  that  never  happens,  and  a 
great  deal  that  could  not  possibly  happen.  It 
was  at  Our  Club  that  I  learned  the  particulars 
of  the  Van  Twiller  affair. 

It  was  great  entertainment  to  Our  Club,  the 
Yan  Twiller  affair,  though  it  was  rather  a  joyless 
thing,  I  fancy,  for  Van  Twiller.  To  understand 
the  case  fully,  it  should  be  understood  that  Ralph 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  211 

Van  Twiller  is  one  of  the  proudest  and  most 
sensitive  men  living.  He  is  a  lineal  descendant 
of  Wouter  Van  Twiller,  the  famous  old  Dutch 
governor  of  New  York,  —  Nieuw  Amsterdam, 
as  it  was  then ;  his  ancestors  have  always  been 
burgomasters  or  admirals  or  generals,  and  his 
mother  is  the  Mrs.  Vanrensselaer  Vanzandt 
Van  Twiller  whose  magnificent  place  will  be 
pointed  out  to  you  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Hudson,  as  you  pass  up  the  historic  river  towards 
Idle  wild.  Ralph  is  about  twenty-five  years  old. 
Birth  made  him  a  gentleman,  and  the  rise  of 
real  estate  —  some  of  it  in  the  family  since 
the  old  governor's  time  —  made  him  a  million- 
naire.  It  was  a  kindly  fairy  that  stepped  in  and 
made  him  a  good  fellow  also.  Fortune,  I  take  it, 
was  in  her  most  jocund  mood  when  she  heaped 
her  gifts  in  this  fashion  on  Van  Twiller,  who  was, 
and  will  be  again,  when  this  cloud  blows  over, 
the  flower  of  Our  Club. 

About  a  year  ago  there  came  a  whisper  —  if 
the  word  "  whisper  "  is  not  too  harsh  a  term  to 
apply  to  what  seemed  a  mere  breath  floating 
gently  through  the  atmosphere  of  the  billiard- 
room  —  imparting    the    intelligence    that    Van 


212  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI. 

T wilier  was  in  some  kind  of  trouble.  Just  as 
everybody  suddenly  takes  to  wearing  square-toed 
boots,  or  to  drawing  his  neckscarf  through  a 
ring,  so  it  became  all  at  once  the  fashion,  without 
any  preconcerted  agreement,  for  everybody  to 
speak  of  Van  Twiller  as  a  man  in  some  way 
under  a  cloud.  But  what  the  cloud  was,  and 
how  he  got  under  it,  and  why  he  did  not  get 
away  from  it,  were  points  that  lifted  themselves 
into  the  realm  of  pure  conjecture.  There  was 
no  man  in  the  club  with  strong  enough  wing 
to  his  imagination  to  soar  to  the  supposition  that 
Van  Twiller  was  embarrassed  in  money  matters. 
Was  he  in  love  ?  That  appeared  nearly  as 
improbable ;  for  if  he  had  been  in  love  all  the 
world  —  that  is,  perhaps  a  hundred  first  families 
—  would  have  known  all  about  it  instantly. 

"  He  has  the  symptoms,"  said  Delaney,  laugh- 
ing. "  I  remember  once  when  Jack  Flem- 
ming  —  " 

"  Ned !  "  cried  Flemming,  "  I  protest  against 
any  allusion  to  that  business." 

This  was  one  night  when  Van  Twiller  had 
wandered  into  the  club,  turned  over  the  maga- 
zinies  absently  in  the  reading-room,  and  wandered 
11  p 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  213 

out  again  without  speaking  ten  words.  The 
most  careless  eye  would  have  remarked  the  great 
change  that  had  come  over  Van  T wilier.  Now 
and  then  he  would  play  a  game  of  billiards  with 
Bret  Harte  or  John  Hay,  or  stop  to  chat  a  mo- 
ment in  the  vestibule  with  Whitelaw  Reid ;  but 
he  was  an  altered  man.  When  at  the  club,  he 
was  usually  to  be  found  in  the  small  smoking- 
room  up  stairs,  seated  on  a  fauteuil  fast  asleep, 
with  the  last  number  of  The  Nation  in  his  hand. 
Once  if  you  went  to  two  or  three  places  of  an 
evening,  you  were  certain  to  meet  Van  T wilier  at 
them  all.     You  seldom  met  him  in  society  now. 

By  and  by  came  whisper  number  two,  a 
whisper  more  emphatic  than  number  one,  but 
still  untraceable  to  any  tangible  mouth-piece. 
This  time  the  whisper  said  Van  Twiller  was 
in  love.  But  with  whom  ?  The  list  of  possible 
Mrs.  Van  Twillers  was  carefully  examined  by 
experienced  hands,  and  a  check  placed  against  a 
fine  old  Knickerbocker  name  here  and  there,  but 
nothing  satisfactory  arrived  at.  Then  that  same 
still  small  voice  of  rumor,  but  now  with  an  easily 
detected  staccato  sharpness  to  it,  said  that  Van 
Twiller  was  in  love  —  with   an   actress !     Van 


214  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI. 

Twiller,  whom  it  had  taken  all  these  years  and 
all  this  waste  of  raw  material  in  the  way  of 
ancestors  to  bring  to  perfection,  —  Ralph  Yan 
Twiller,  the  net  result  and  flower  of  his  race, 
the  descendant  of  Wouter,  the  son  of  Mrs. 
Yanrensselaer  Yanzandt  Yan  Twiller,  —  in  love 
with  an  actress !  That  was  too  ridiculous  to 
be  believed,  —  and  so  everybody  believed  it. 

Six  or  seven  members  of  the  club  abruptly 
discovered  in  themselves  an  unsuspected  latent 
passion  for  the  histrionic  art.  In  squads  of  two 
or  three  they  stormed  successively  all  the  theatres 
in  town,  —  Booth's,  Wallack's,  Daly's  Fifth  Ave- 
nue (not  burnt  down  then) ,  and  the  Grand  Opera 
House.  Even  the  shabby  homes  of  the  drama 
over  in  the  Bowery,  where  the  Germanic  Thes- 
pis  has  not  taken  out  his  naturalization  papers, 
underwent  rigid  exploration.  But  no  clew  was 
found  to  Yan  Twiller' s  mysterious  attachment. 
The  opera  houffe^  which  promised  the  widest 
field  for  investigation,  produced  absolutely  noth- 
ing, not  even  a  crop  of  suspicions.  One  night, 
after  several  weeks  of  this,  Delaney  and  I 
fancied  we  caught  a  glimpse  of  Yan  Twiller 
in  the  private  box  of  an  up-town  theatre,  where 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  215 

some  thrilling  trapeze  performance  was  going  on, 
which  we  did  not  care  to  sit  through ;  but  we 
concluded  afterwards  it  was  only  somebody  that 
looked  like  him.  Delaney,  by  the  way,  was 
unusually  active  in  this  search.  I  dare  say  he 
never  quite  forgave  Van  Twiller  for  calling 
him  Muslin  Delaney.  Ned  is  fond  of  ladies' 
society  and  that 's  a  fact. 

The  Cirmnerian  darkness  which  surrounded 
Yan  Twiller's  inamorata  left  us  free  to  indulge 
in  the  wildest  conjectures.  Whether  she  was 
black-tressed  Melpomene,  with  bowl  and  dagger, 
or  Thalia,  with  the  fair  hair  and  the  laughing 
face,  was  only  to  be  guessed  at.  It  was  popularly 
conceded,  however,  that  Van  Twiller  was  on  the 
point  of  forming  a  dreadful  mesalliance. 

Up  to  this  period  he  had  visited  the  club 
regularly.  Suddenly  he  ceased  to  appear.  He 
was  not  to  be  seen  on  Broadway,  or  in  the 
Central  Park,  or  at  the  houses  he  generally 
frequented.  His  chambers  —  and  mighty  com- 
fortable ones  they  were — on  Thirty-fourth  Street 
were  deserted.  He  had  dropped  out  of  the  world, 
shot  like  a  bright  particular  star  from  his  orbit 
in  the  heaven  of  the  best  society. 


216  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI. 

"  Where  's  Van  Twiller  ?  '' 

"  Who  's  seen  Van  Twiller  ?  " 

"  What  has  become  of  Yan  Twiller  ?  " 

Delaney  picked  up  the  Evening  Post,  and  read, 
—  with  a  solemnity  that  betrayed  young  Firkins 
into  exclaiming,  "  By  Jove  now  !  "  — 

"  Married,  on  the  10th  instant,  by  the  Rev. 
Friar  Laurence,  at  the  residence  of  the  bride's 
uncle,  Montague  Capulet,  Esq.,  Miss  Adrienne  Le 
Couvreur  to  Mr.  Ralph  Van  Twiller,  both  of  this 
city.     No  cards." 

"  It  strikes  me,"  said  Frank  Livingstone,  who 
had  been  ruffling  the  leaves  of  a  magazine  at  the 
other  end  of  the  table,  "  that  you  fellows  are  in  a 
great  fever  about  Yan  Twiller." 

"  So  we  are." 

"  Well,  he  has  simply  gone  out  of  town." 

"  Where  ?  " 

"  Up  to  the  old  homestead  on  the  Hudson." 

"  It 's  an  odd  time  of  year  for  a  fellow  to  go 
into  the  country." 

"  He  has  gone  to  visit  his  mother,"  said  Living- 
stone. 

"  In  February  ?  " 

"  I  did  n't  know,  Delaney,  there  was  any  stat- 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  217 

ute  in  force  prohibiting  a  man  from  visiting  his 
mother  in  February  if  he  wants  to." 

Delaney  made  some  light  remark  about  the 
pleasure  of  communing  with  Nature  with  a  cold 
in  her  head,  and  the  topic  was  dropped. 

Livingstone  was  hand  in  glove  with  Van  Twil- 
ler,  and  if  any  man  shared  his  confidence  it  was 
Livingstone.  He  was  aware  of  the  gossip  and 
speculation  that  had  been  rife  in  the  club,  but  he 
either  was  not  at  liberty  or  did  not  think  it  worth 
while  to  relieve  our  curiosity.  In  the  course  of  a 
week  or  two  it  was  reported  that  Van  Twiller 
was  going  to  Europe ;  and  go  he  did.  A  dozen 
of  us  went  down  to  the  Scotia  to  see  him  off.  It 
was  refreshing  to  have  something  as  positive  as 
the  fact  that  Van  Twiller  had  sailed. 


218  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABllISKI- 


n. 


Shortly  after  Van  T wilier 's  departure  the 
whole  thing  came  out.  Whether  Livingstone 
found  the  secret  too  heavy  a  burden,  or  whether 
it  transpired  through  some  indiscretion  on  the 
part  of  Mrs.  Vanrensselaer  Vanzandt  Van  Twil- 
ler,  I  cannot  say  ;  but  one  evening  the  entire 
story  was  in  the  possession  of  the  club. 

Yan  T wilier  had  actually  been  very  deeply  in- 
terested—  not  in  an  actress,  for  the  legitimate 
drama  was  not  her  humble  walk  in  life,  but  —  in 
Mademoiselle  Olympe  Zabriski,  whose  really  per- 
ilous feats  on  the  trapeze  had  astonished  New 
York  the  year  before,  though  they  had  failed  to 
attract  Delaney  and  me  the  night  we  wandered 
into  the  up-town  theatre  on  the  trail  of  Yan 
T wilier 's  mystery. 

That  a  man  like  Yan  Twiller  should  be  fas- 
cinated for  an  instant  by  a  common  circus-girl 
seems  incredible  ;  but  it  is  always  the  incredi- 
ble thing  that  happens.     Besides,  Mademoiselle 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  219 

Olympe  was  not  a  common  circus-girl ;  she  was 
a  most  daring  and  startling  gymnaste,  with  a 
beauty  and  a  grace  of  movement  that  gave  to 
her  audacious  performance  almost  an  air  of 
prudery.  Watching  her  wondrous  dexterity  and 
pliant  strength,  both  exercised  without  apparent 
effort,  it  seemed  the  most  natural  proceeding  in 
the  world  that  she  should  do  those  unpardonable 
things.  She  had  a  way  of  melting  from  one 
graceful  posture  into  another,  like  the  dissolving 
figures  thrown  from  a  stereopticon.  She  was  a 
lithe,  radiant  shape  out  of  the  Grecian  mythology, 
now  poised  up  there  above  the  gas-lights,  and 
now  gleaming  through  the  air  like  a  slender  gilt 
arrow. 

I  am  describing  Mademoiselle  Olympe  as  she 
appeared  to  Van  Twiller  on  the  first  occasion 
when  he  strolled  into  the  theatre  where  she  was 
performing.  To  me  she  was  a  girl  of  eighteen 
or  twenty  years  of  age  (maybe  she  was  much 
older,  for  pearl-powder  and  distance  keep  these 
people  perpetually  young),  slightly  but  exqui- 
sitely built,  with  sinews  of  silver  wire  ;  rather 
pretty,  perhaps,  after  a  manner,  but  showing 
plainly  the  effects  of  the  exliaustive  drafts  she 


220  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI. 

was  making  on  her  physical  vitaHty.  Now,  Yan 
Twiller  was  an  enthusiast  on  the  subject  of  calis- 
thenics. "  If  I  had  a  daughter,"  Van  Twiller  used 
to  say,  "  I  would  n't  send  her  to  a  boarding- 
school,  or  a  nunnery  ;  I  'd  send  her  to  a  gym- 
nasium for  the  first  five  years.  Our  American 
women  have  no  physique.  They  are  liHes,  pallid, 
pretty, —  and  perishable.  You  marry  an  Amer- 
ican woman,  and  what  do  you  marry  ?  A  head- 
ache. Look  at  English  girls.  They  are  at  least 
roses,  and  last  the  season  through." 

Walking  home  from  the  theatre  that  first 
night,  it  flitted  through  Yan  Twiller's  mind 
that  if  he  could  give  this  girl's  set  of  nerves 
and  muscles  to  any  one  of  the  two  hundred  high- 
bred  women  he  knew,  he  would  marry  her  on  the 
spot  and  worship  her  forever. 

The  following  evening  he  went  to  see  Made- 
moiselle Olympe  again.  "  Olympe  Zabriski,"  he 
thought,  as  he  sauntered  through  the  lobby, 
"  what  a  queer  name  !  Olympe  is  French,  and 
Zabriski  is  Polish.  It  is  her  nom  de  guerre^  of 
course ;  her  real  name  is  probably  Sarah  Jones. 
What  kind  of  creature  can  she  be  in  private  life, 
I  wonder  ?  I  wonder  if  she  wears  that  costume 
11* 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  221 

all  the  time,  and  if  she  springs  to  her  meals 
from  a  horizontal  bar.  Of  course  she  rocks 
the  baby  to  sleep  on  the  trapeze."  And  Van 
Twiller  went  on  making  comical  domestic  tableaux 
of  Mademoiselle  Zabriski,  like  the  clever,  satirical 
dog  he  was,  until  the  curtain  rose. 

This  was  on  a  Friday.  There  was  a  matinde 
the  next  day,  and  he  attended  that,  though  he 
had  secured  a  seat  for  the  usual  evening  en- 
tertainment. Then  it  became  a  habit  of  Van 
Twiller's  to  drop  into  the  theatre  for  half  an 
hour  or  so  every  night,  to  assist  at  the  interlude, 
in  which  she  appeared.  He  cared  only  for  her 
part  of  the  programme,  and  timed  his  visits 
accordingly.  It  was  a  surprise  to  himself  when 
he  reflected,  one  morning,  that  he  had  not  missed 
a  single  performance  of  Mademoiselle  Olympe  for 
two  weeks. 

^'  This  will  never  do,"  said  Van  Twiller. 
"Olympe"  —  he  called  her  Olympe,  as  if  she 
were  an  old  acquaintance,  and  so  she  might  have 
been  considered  by  that  time  —  "is  a  wonderful 
creature  ;  but  this  will  never  do.  Yan,  my  boy, 
you  must  reform  this  altogether." 

But  half  past  nine  that  night  saw  him  in  his 


222  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI. 

accustomed  orchestra  chair,  and  so  on  for  another 
week.  A  habit  leads  a  man  so  gently  in  the 
beginning  that  he  does  not  perceive  he  is  led,  — 
with  what  silken  threads  and  down  what  pleasant 
avenues  it  leads  him !  By  and  by  the  soft  silk 
threads  become  iron  chains,  and  the  pleasant 
avenues  Avernus ! 

Quite  a  new  element  had  lately  entered 
into  Yan  Twiller's  enjoyment  of  Mademoiselle 
Olympe's  ingenious  feats,  —  a  vaguely  born  ap- 
prehension that  she  might  slip  from  that  swing- 
ing bar,  that  one  of  the  thin  cords  supporting  it 
might  snap,  and  let  her  go  headlong  from  the 
dizzy  height.  Now  and  then,  for  a  terrible  in- 
stant, he  would  imagine  her  lying  a  glittering, 
palpitating  heap  at  the  foot-lights,  with  no  color 
in  her  lips !  Sometimes  it  seemed  as  if  the  girl 
were  tempting  this  kind  of  fate.  It  was  a  hard, 
bitter  life,  and  nothing  but  poverty  and  sordid 
misery  at  home  could  have  driven  her  to  it. 
What  if  she  should  end  it  all  some  night,  by  just 
unclasping  that  little  hand  ?  It  looked  so  small 
and  white  from  where  Van  Twiller  sat ! 

This  frightful  idea  fascinated  while  it  chilled 
him,   and  helped  to   make  it  nearly  impossible 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABIIISKI.  223 

for  him  to  keep  away  from  the  theatre.  In  tlie 
beginning  his  attendance  had  not  interfered  with 
his  social  duties  or  pleasures  ;  but  now  he  came 
to  find  it  distasteful  after  dinner  to  do  anything 
but  read,  or  walk  the  streets  aimlessly,  until 
it  was  time  to  go  to  the  play.  When  that  was  over, 
he  was  in  no  mood  to  go  anywhere  but  to  his 
rooms.  So  he  dropped  away  by  insensible  degrees 
from  his  habitual  haunts,  was  missed,  and  began 
to  be  talked  about  at  the  club.  Catching  some 
intimation  of  this,  he  ventured  no  more  in  the 
orchestra  stalls,  but  shrouded  himself  behind 
the  draperies  of  the  private  box  in  which  Delaney 
and  I  thought  we  saw  him  on  one  occasion. 

Now,  I  find  it  very  perplexing  to  explain  what 
Yan  Twiller  was  wholly  unable  to  explain  to 
himself.  He  was  not  in  love  with  Mademoiselle 
Olympe.  He  had  no  wish  to  speak  to  her,  or 
to  hear  her  speak.  Nothing  could  have  been 
easier,  and  nothing  further  from  his  desire, 
than  to  know  her  personally.  A  Van  Twiller 
personally  acquainted  with  a  strolling  female 
acrobat !  Good  heavens  !  That  was  something 
possible  only  with  the  discovery  of  perpetual 
motion.      Taken    from    her    theatrical    setting. 


224  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKl. 

from  lier  lofty  perch,  so  to  say,  on  the  trapeze- 
bar,  Olympe  Zabriski  would  have  shocked  every 
aristocratic  fibre  in  Van  Twiller's  body.  He  was 
simply  fascinated  by  her  marvellous  grace  and 
elan^  and  the  magnetic  recklessness  of  the  girl. 
It  was  very  young  in  him  and  very  weak,  and 
no  member  of  the  Sorosis,  or  all  the  Sorosisters 
together,  could  have  been  more  severe  on  Van 
T wilier  than  he  was  on  himself.  To  be  weak, 
and  to  know  it,  is  something  of  a  punishment 
for  a  proud  man.  Van  Twiller  took  his  punish- 
ment, and  went  to  the  theatre,  regularly. 

''  When  her  engagement  comes  to  an  end," 
he  meditated,  "  that  will  finish  the  business." 

Mademoiselle  Olympe' s  engagement  finally  did 
come  to  an  end,  and  she  departed.  But  her 
engagement  had  been  highly  beneficial  to  the 
treasury-chest  of  the  up-town  theatre,  and  before 
Van  Twiller  could  get  over  missing  her  she 
had  returned  from  a  short  Western  tour,  and  her 
immediate  reappearance  was  underlined  on  the 
play-bills. 

On  a  dead-wall  opposite  the  windows  of 
Van  Twiller' s  sleeping-room  there  appeared, 
as  if  by  necromancy,  an  aggressive  poster  with 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  225 

Mademoiselle  Olympe  Zabriski  on  it  in  letters 
at  least  a  foot  high.  This  thing  stared  him 
in  the  face  when  he  woke  up,  one  morning. 
It  gave  him  a  sensation  as  if  she  had  called 
on  him  overnight,  and  left  her  card. 

From  time  to  time  through  the  day  he  regarded 
that  poster  with  a  sardonic  eye.  He  had  pitiless- 
ly resolved  not  to  repeat  the  folly  of  the  previous 
month.  To  say  that  this  moral  victory  cost 
him  nothing  would  be  to  deprive  it  of  merit. 
It  cost  him  many  internal  struggles.  It  is  a  fine 
thing  to  see  a  man  seizing  his  temptation  by  the 
throat,  and  wrestling  with  it,  and  trampling 
it  under  foot  like  St.  Anthony.  This  was  the 
spectacle  Van  Twiller  was  exhibiting  to  the 
angels. 

The  evening  Mademoiselle  Olympe  was  to 
make  her  reappearance.  Van  Twiller,  having 
dined  at  the  club  and  feeling  more  like  himself 
than  he  had  felt  for  weeks,  returned  to  his 
chamber,  and  putting  on  dressing-gown  and 
slippers,  piled  up  the  greater  portion  of  his 
library  about  him,  and  fell  to  reading  assiduously. 
There  is  nothing  like  a  quiet  evening  at  home 
with   some   slight  intellectual   occupation,  after 


226  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    Zx^ERISKI. 

one's   feathers    have    been    stroked   the   wrong 
way. 

When  the  lively  French  clock  on  the  mantel- 
piece,—  a  base  of  malachite  surmounted  by  a 
flying  bronze  Mercury  with  its  arms  spread  grace- 
fully on  the  air,  and  not  remotely  suggestive 
of  Mademoiselle  Olympe  in  the  act  of  executing 
lier  grand  flight  from  the  trapeze,  —  when  the 
clock,  I  repeat,  struck  nine.  Van  Twiller  paid  no 
attention  to  it.  That  was  certainly  a  triumph. 
I  am  anxious  to  render  Van  Twiller  all  the 
justice  I  can,  at  this  point  of  the  narrative, 
inasmuch  as  when  the  half-hour  sounded  musical- 
ly, like  a  crystal  ball  dropping  into  a  silver  bowl, 
he  rose  from  the  chair  automatically,  thrust 
his  feet  into  his  walking-shoes,  threw  his  over- 
coat across  his  arm,  and  strode  out  of  the  room. 

To  be  weak  and  to  scorn  your  weakness, 
and  not  to  be  able  to  conquer  it,  is,  as  has 
been  said,  a  hard  thing;  and  I  suspect  it  was 
not  with  unalloyed  satisfaction  that  Van  Twiller 
found  himself  taking  his  seat  in  the  back  part  of 
the  private  box  night  after  night  during  the 
second  engagement  of  Mademoiselle  Olympe.  It 
was  so  easy  not  to  stay  away ! 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  227 

In  this  second  edition  of  Van  T  wilier' s  fatuity, 
ills  case  was  even  worse  than  before.  He  not 
only  thought  of  Olympe  quite  a  number  of  times 
between  breakfast  and  dinner,  he  not  only  at- 
tended the  interlude  regularly,  but  lie  began,  in 
spite  of  himself,  to  occupy  his  leisure  hours  at 
night  by  dreaming  of  her.  This  was  too  much 
of  a  good  thing,  and  Van  Twiller  regarded  it  so. 
Besides,  the  dream  was  always  the  same,  —  a 
harrowing  dream,  a  dream  singularly  adapted  to 
shattering  the  nerves  of  a  man  like  Van  Twiller. 
He  would  imagine  himself  seated  at  the  theatre 
(with  all  the  members  of  Our  Club  in  the  par- 
quette) ,  watching  Mademoiselle  Olympe  as  usual, 
when  suddenly  that  young  lady  would  launch 
herself  desperately  from  the  trapeze,  and  come 
flying  through  the  air  like  a  firebrand  hurled  at 
his  private  box.  Then  the  unfortunate  man 
would  wake  up  with  cold  drops  standing  on  his 
forehead. 

There  is  one  redeeming  feature  in  this  infatua- 
tion of  Van  T wilier' s  which  the  sober  moralist 
will  love  to  look  upon,  —  the  serene  unconscious- 
ness of  tlie  person  who  caused  it.  She  went 
through  her  role  with  admirable  aplomb,  drew 


228  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI. 

her  salary,  it  may  be  assumed,  punctually,  and 
appears  from  first  to  last  to  have  been  ignorant 
that  there  was  a  miserable  slave  wearing  her 
chains  nightly  in  the  left-hand  proscenium-box. 

That  Van  Twiller,  haunting  the  theatre  with 
the  persistency  of  an  ex-actor,  conducted  himself 
so  discreetly  as  not  to  draw  the  fire  of  Mademoi- 
selle Olympe's  blue  eyes  shows  that  Van  Twil- 
ler, however  deeply  under  a  spell,  was  not  in 
love.  I  say  this,  though  I  think  if  Van  Twiller 
had  not  been  Van  Twiller,  if  he  had  been  a  man 
of  no  family  and  no  position  and  no  money,  if 
New  York  had  been  Paris,  and  Thirty-fourth 
Street  a  street  in  the  Latin  Quarter  —  but  it  is 
useless  to  speculate  on  what  might  have  hap- 
pened.    What  did  happen  is  sufficient. 

It  happened,  then,  in  the  second  week  of 
Queen  Olympe's  second  unconscious  reign,  that 
an  appalling  Whisper  floated  up  the  Hudson, 
effected  a  landing  at  a  point  between  Spuyten 
Duyvel  Creek  and  Cold  Spring,  and  sought  out 
a  stately  mansion  of  Dutch  architecture  standing 
on  the  bank  of  the  river.  The  Whisper  straight- 
way informed  the  lady  dwelling  in  this  mansion 
that  all  was  not  well  with  the  last  of  the  Van 

Q 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  229 

Twillers,  that  he  was  gradually  estranging  him- 
self from  his  peers,  and  wasting  his  nights  in  a 
play-house  watching  a  misguided  young  woman 
turning  unmaidenly  summersaults  on  a  piece  of 
wood  attached  to  two  ropes. 

Mrs.  Yanrensselaer  Vanzandt  Van  T wilier 
came  down  to  town  by  the  next  train  to  look 
into  this  little  matter. 

She  found  the  flower  of  the  family  taking  an 
early  breakfast,  at  11  a.  m.,  in  his  cosey  apart- 
ments on  Thirty-fourth  Street.  With  the  least 
possible  circumlocution  she  confronted  him  with 
what  rumor  had  reported  of  his  pursuits,  and 
was  pleased,  but  not  too  much  pleased,  when  he 
gave  her  an  exact  account  of  his  relations  with 
Mademoiselle  Zabriski,  neither  concealing  nor 
qualifying  anything.  As  a  confession,  it  was 
unique,  and  might  have  been  a  great  deal  less 
entertaining.  Two  or  three  times,  in  the  course 
of  the  narrative,  the  matron  had  some  difficulty 
in  preserving  the  gravity  of  her  countenance. 
After  meditating  a  few  minutes,  she  tapped  Van 
Twiller  saftly  on  the  arm  with  the  tip  of  her 
parasol,  and  invited  him  to  return  with  her  tlie 
next  day  up  the  Hudson  and  make  a  brief  visit 


230  MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI. 

at  tlie  home  of  his  ancestors.  He  accepted  the 
invitation  with  outward  alacrity  and  inward 
disgust. 

Wlien  this  was  settled,  and  the  worthy  lady 
had  withdrawn,  Van  T wilier  went  directly  to 
the  establishment  of  Messrs  Ball,  Black,  and 
Company  and  selected,  with  unerring  taste,  the 
finest  diamond  bracelet  procurable.  For  his 
mother  ?  Dear  me,  no  !  She  had  the  family 
jewels. 

I  would  not  like  to  state  the  enormous  sum 
Yan  Twiller  paid  for  this  bracelet.  It  was  such 
a  clasp  of  diamonds  as  would  have  hastened  the 
pulsation  of  a  patrician  wrist.  It  was  such  a 
bracelet  as  Prince  Camaralzaman  might  have 
sent  to  the  Princess  Badoura,  and  the  Princess 
Badoura  —  might  have  been  very  glad  to  get. 

In  the  fragrant  Levant  morocco  case,  where 
these  happy  jewels  lived  when  they  were  at  home, 
Yan  Twiller  thoughtfully  placed  his  card,  on  the 
back  of  which  he  had  written  a  line  begging 
Mademoiselle  Olympe  Zabriski  to  accept  the  ac- 
companying trifle  from  one  who  had  witnessed  her 
graceful  performances  with  interest  and  pleasure. 
This  was  not  done  inconsiderately.      "  Of  course 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI.  231 

I  must  enclose  my  card,  as  I  would  to  any  lady," 
Van  T wilier  had  said  to  himself  ;  "  a  Van  T wil- 
ier can  neither  write  an  anonymous  letter  nor 
make  an  anonymous  present."  Blood  entails  its 
duties  as  well  as  its  privileges. 

The  casket  despatched  to  its  destination,  Van 
Twiller  felt  easier  in  his  mind.  He  was  under 
obligations  to  the  girl  for  many  an  agreeable  hour 
that  might  otherwise  have  passed  heavily.  He 
had  paid  the  debt,  and  he  had  paid  it  en  prince^ 
as  became  a  Van  Twiller.  He  spent  the  rest  of 
the  day  in  looking  at  some  pictures  at  Goupil's, 
and  at  the  club,  and  in  making  a  few  purchases 
for  his  trip  up  the  Hudson.  A  consciousness 
that  this  trip  up  the  Hudson  was  a  disorderly  re- 
treat came  over  him  unpleasantly  at  intervals. 

When  he  returned  to  his  rooms  late  at  night, 
he  found  a  note  lying  on  the  writing-table.     He 

started  as  liis  eye  caught  the  words  " Thea- 

tre  "  stamped  in  carmine  letters  on  one  corner  of 
the  envelope.  Van  Twiller  broke  the  seal  with 
trembhng  fingers. 

Now,  this  note  some  time  afterwards  fell  into 
the  hands  of  Livingtsone,  who  showed  it  to  Stuy- 
vesant,  who  showed  it  to  Delaney,  who  showed 


232 


MADEMOISELLE    OLYMPE    ZABRISKI. 


it  to  me,  and  I  copied  it  as  a  literary  curiosity. 
The  note  ran  as  follows :  — 

Mr  Van  Twiller  Dear  Sir  —  i  am  verry  great- 
fuU  to  you  for  that  Bracelett.  it  come  just  in  the  nic 
of  time  for  me.  The  Mademoiselle  Zabriski  dodg  is 
about  plaid  out.  My  beard  is  getting  to  much  for  me. 
i  shall  have  to  grow  a  mustash  and  take  to  some  other 
line  of  busyness,  i  dont  no  what  now,  but  will  let 
you  no.  You  wont  feel  bad  if  i  sell  that  Bracelett.  i 
have  seen  Abrahams  Moss  and  he  says  he  will  do  the 
square  thing.  Pleas  accep  my  thanks  for  youre  Beau- 
tifull  and  Unexpected  present. 

Youre  respectfull  servent, 

Charles  Montmorenci  Walters. 

The  next  day  Van  Twiller  neither  expresse(J 
nor  felt  any  unwillingness  to  spend  a  few  weeks 
with  his  mother  at  the  old  homestead. 

And  then  he  went  abroad. 


/ 


PERE  ANTOINE'S  DATE-PALM. 


A  TEAR  the  Levee,  and  not  far  from  the  old 
^^  French  Cathedral  in  the  Place  d'Armes,  at 
New  Orleans,  stands  a  fine  date-palm,  thirty  feet 
in  height,  spreading  its  broad  leaves  in  the  alien 
air  as  hardily  as  if  its  sinuous  roots  were  sucking 
strength  from  their  native  earth. 

Sir  Charles  Lyell,  in  his  "  Second  Visit  to  the 
United  States,"  mentions  this  exotic  :  "  The  tree 
is  seventy  or  eighty  years  old  ;  for  Pere  Antoine, 
a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  who  died  about  twenty 
years  ago,  told  Mr.  Bringier  that  he  planted  it  him- 
self, when  he  was  young.  In  his  will  he  provid- 
ed that  they  who  succeeded  to  this  lot  of  ground 
should  forfeit  it  if  they  cut  down  the  palm." 

Wishing  to  learn  something  of  Pere  Antoine's 
history,  Sir  Charles  Lyell  made  inquiries  among 
the  ancient  Creole  inhabitants  of  the  faubourg. 
That  the  old  priest,  in  his  last  days,  became  very 


234  PERE  antoine's  date-palm. 

mucli  emaciated,  that  he  walked  about  the  streets 
like  a  mummy,  that  he  gradually  dried  up,  and  fi- 
nally blew  away,  was  the  meagre  and  unsatisfac- 
tory result  of  the  tourist's  investigations.  This 
is  all  that  is  generally  told  of  Pere  Antoine. 

In  the  summer  of  1861,  while  New  Orleans 
was  yet  occupied  by  the  E.ebel  forces,  I  met  at 
Alexandria,  in  Virginia,  a  lady  from  Louisiana, 
—  Miss  Blondeau  by  name,  —  who  gave  me  the 
substance  of  the  following  legend  touching  Pere 
Antoine  and  his  wonderful  date-palm.  If  it 
should  appear  tame  to  the  reader,  it  will  be  be- 
cause I  am  not  habited  in  a  black  ribbed-silk 
dress,  with  a  strip  of  point-lace  around  my  throat, 
like  Miss  Blondeau ;  it  will  be  because  I  lack  her 
eyes  and  lips  and  Southern  music  to  tell  it  with. 

When  P^re  Antoine  was  a  very  young  man,  he 
liad  a  friend  whom  he  loved  as  he  loved  his  life. 
Emile  Jardin  returned  his  passion,  and  the  two, 
on  account  of  their  friendship,  became  the  marvel 
of  the  city  where  they  dwelt.  One  was  never 
seen  without  the  other  ;  for  they  studied,  walked, 
ate,  and  slept  together. 

Thus  began  Miss   Blondeau,  with  the  air  of 


PERE    ANTOINE  S    DATE-PALM.  2oO 

Fiammetta  telling  her  prettiest  story  to  the  Flor> 
entines  in  the  garden  of  Boccaccio. 

Antoine  and  Emilc  were  preparing  to  enter 
the  Church  ;  indeed,  tliey  had  taken  the  prelimi- 
nary steps,  when  a  circumstance  occurred  which 
changed  the  color  of  their  lives.  A  foreign  lady, 
from  some  nameless  island  in  the  Pacific,  had  a 
few  months  before  moved  into  their  neighbor- 
hood. The  lady  died  suddenly,  leaving  a  girl  of 
sixteen  or  seventeen,  entirely  friendless  and  un- 
provided for.  The  young  men  had  been  kind  to 
the  woman  during  her  illness,  and  at  her  death 
—  melting  with  pity  at  the  forlorn  situation  of 
Anglice,  the  daughter —  swore  between  them- 
selves to  love  and  watch  over  her  as  if  she  were 
their  sister. 

Now  Anglice  had  a  wild,  strange  beauty  that 
made  other  women  seem  tame  beside  her ;  and  in 
the  course  of  time  the  young  men  found  them- 
selves regarding  their  ward  not  so  much  like 
brothers  as  at  first.  In  brief,  they  found  them- 
selves in  love  with  her. 

They  struggled  with  their  hopeless  passion 
month  after  month,  neither  betraying  his  secret 
to  the  other;  for  the  austere  orders  which  they 


236  PERE    ANTOINE  S    DATE-PALM. 

were  about  to  assume  precluded  the  idea  of 
love  and  marriage.  Until  then  they  had  dwelt 
in  the  calm  air  of  religious  meditations,  unmoved 
except  by  that  pious  fervor  which  in  other  ages 
taught  men  to  brave  the  tortures  of  the  rack  and 
to  smile  amid  the  flames.  But  a  blond  girl, 
with  great  eyes  and  a  voice  like  the  soft  notes  of 
a  vesper  hymn,  had  come  in  between  them  and 
their  ascetic  dreams  of  heaven.  The  ties  that 
had  bound  the  young  men  together  snapped  silent- 
ly one  by  one.  At  length  each  read  in  the  pale 
face  of  the  other  the  story  of  his  own  despair. 

And  she  ?  If  Anglice  shared  their  trouble, 
her  face  told  no  story.  It  was  like  the  face  of  a 
saint  on  a  cathedral  window.  Once,  however,  as 
she  came  suddenly  upon  the  two  men  and  over- 
heard words  that  seemed  to  burn  like  fire  on  the 
lip  of  the  speaker,  her  eyes  grew  luminous  for  an 
instant.  Then  she  passed  on,  her  face  as  im- 
mobile as  before  in  its  setting  of  wavy  gold  hair. 

"  Entre  or  et  roux  Dieu  fit  ses  longs  cheveux." 

One  night  Emile  and  Anglice  were  missing. 
They  had  flown,  —  but  whither,  nobody  knew, 
and  nobody,  save  Antoine,  cared.  It  was  a  heavy 
blow    to    Antoine,  —  for    he    had    himself    half 

12 


PERE    ANTOINE's    DATE-PALM.  2^1 

resolved  to  confess  his  love  to  Anglice  and  urge 
her  to  fly  with  him. 

A  strip  of  paper  slipped  from  a  volume  on 
Antoine's  prie-dieu,  and  fluttered  to  his  feet. 

"Do  not  be  angry ^"^  said  the  bit  of  paper, 
piteously  ;  '^  forgive  us,  for  2ve  love.^^ 

Three  years  went  by  wearily  enough.  An- 
toine  had  entered  the  Church,  and  was  already 
looked  upon  as  a  rising  man ;  but  his  face  was 
pale  and  his  heart  leaden,  for  there  was  no 
sweetness  in  life  for  him. 

Four  years  had  elapsed,  when  a  letter,  covered 
with  outlandish  postmarks,  was  brought  to  the 
young  priest,  —  a  letter  from  Anglice.  She  was 
dying ;  —  would  he  forgive  her  ?  Emile,  the  year 
previous,  had  fallen  a  victim  to  the  fever  that 
raged  on  the  island ;  and  their  child,  Anglice, 
was  likely  to  follow  him.  In  pitiful  terms  she 
begged  Antoine  to  take  charge  of  the  child  until 
she»  was  old  enough  to  enter  the  convent  of 
the  Sacre-Coeur.  The  epistle  was  finished  has- 
tily by  another  hand,  informing  Antoine  of 
Madame  Jardin's  death ;  it  also  told  him  that 
Anglice  had  been  placed  on  board  a  vessel  short- 
ly to  leave  tlie  island  for  some  Western  port. 


238  PERE  axtoine's  date-palm. 

The  letter,  delayed  by  storm  and  shipwreck, 
\\^as  hardly  read  and  wept  over  when  little 
Angiice  arrived. 

On  beholding  her,  Antoine  uttered  a  cry  of  joy 
and  surprise,  —  she  was  so  like  the  woman  he 
had  worshipped. 

The  passion  that  had  been  crowded  down  in  his 
heart  broke  out  and  lavished  its  richness  on  this 
child,  who  was  to  him  not  only  the  Angiice  of 
years  ago,  but  his  friend  Emile  Jar  din  also. 

Angiice  possessed  the  wild,  strange  beauty 
of  her  mother, — the  bending,  willowy  form,  the 
rich  tint  of  skin,  the  large  tropical  eyes,  that  had 
almost  made  Antoine's  sacred  robes  a  mockery 
to  him. 

For  a  month  or  two  Angiice  was  wildly  unhap- 
py in  her  new  home.  She  talked  continually  of 
the  bright  country  where  she  was  born,  the  fruits 
and  flowers  and  blue  skies,  the  tall,  fan-like  trees, 
and  the  streams  that  went  murmuring  through 
them  to  the  sea.     Antoine  could  not  pacify  her. 

By  and  by  she  ceased  to  weep,  and  went  about 
the  cottage  in  a  weary,  disconsolate  way  that  cut 
Antoine  to  the  heart.  A  long-tailed  paroquet, 
which  she  had   brought   with   her   in   the   ship, 


PERE    ANTOINE's    DATE-PALM.  239 

walked  solemnly  behind  her  from  room  to  room, 
mutely  pining,  it  seemed,  for  those  heavy  orient 
airs  that  used  to  ruffle  its  brilliant  plumage. 

Before  the  year  ended,  he  noticed  that  the 
ruddy  tinge  had  faded  from  her  cheek,  that 
her  eyes  had  grown  languid,  and  her  slight 
figure  more  willowy  than  ever. 

A  physician  was  consulted.  He  could  discover 
nothing  wrong  with  the  child,  except  this  fading 
and  drooping.  He  failed  to  account  for  that. 
It  was  some  vague  disease  of  the  mind,  he  said^ 
beyond  his  skill. 

So  Anglice  faded  day  after  day.  She  seldom 
left  the  room  now.  At  last  Antoine  could  notr 
shut  out  the  fact  that  the  child  was  passing  away. 
He  had  learned  to  love  her  so  ! 

"  Dear  heart,"  he  said  once,  "  what  is  't  ails 
thee  ? " 

"  Nothing,  mon  pere,"  for  so  she  called  him. 

The  winter  passed,  the  balmy  spring  had 
come  with  its  magnolia  blooms  and  orange 
blossoms,  and  Anglice  seemed  to  revive.  In  her 
small  bamboo  chair,  on  the  porch,  she  swayed 
to  and  fro  in  the  fragrant  breeze,  with  a  peculiar 
undulating  motion,  like  a  graceful  tree. 


240  PERE  antoine's  date-palm. 

At  times  something  seemed  to  weigh  upon  her 
mind.  Antoine  observed  it,  and  waited.  At 
length  she  spoke. 

"  Near  our  house,"  said  little  Anglice,  — 
"  near  our  house,  on  the  island,  the  palm-trees 
are  waving  under  the  blue  sky.  0  how  beauti- 
ful !  I  seem  to  lie  beneath  them  all  day  long.  I 
am  very,  very  happy.  I  yearned  for  them  so 
much  that  I  grew  sick, —  don't  you  think  it  was 
so,  mon  pere?  " 

"  Helas,  yes !  "  exclaimed  Antoine,  suddenly. 
"  Let  us  hasten  to  those  pleasant  islands  where 
the  palms  are  waving." 

Anglice  smiled. 

"  I  am  going  there,  mon  pere." 

A  week  from  that  evening  the  wax  candles 
burned  at  her  feet  and  forehead,  lighting  her  on 
the  journey. 

All  was  over.  Now  was  Antoine's  heart 
empty.  Death,  like  another  Emile,  had  stolen 
his  new  Anglice.  He  had  nothing  to  do  but  to 
lay  the  blighted  flower  away. 

P^re  Antoine  made  a  shallow  grave  in  his 
garden,  and  heaped  the  fresh  brown  mould  over 
his  idol. 


PERE    ANTOINE's    DATE-PALM.  241 

In  the  tranquil  spring  evenings,  the  priest  was 
seen  sitting  by  the  mound,  his  finger  closed  in 
the  unread  breviary. 

The  summer  broke  on  that  sunny  land  ;  and 
in  the  cool  morning  twilight,  and  after  nightfall, 
Antoine  lingered  by  the  grave.  He  coul^  never 
be  with  it  enough. 

One  morning  he  observed  a  delicate  stem,  with 
two  curiously  shaped  emerald  leaves,  springing 
up  from  the  centre  of  the  mound.  At  first  he 
merely  noticed  it  casually  ;  but  at  length  the 
plant  grew  so  tall,  and  was  so  strangely  unlike 
anything  he  had  ever  seen  before,  that  he  exam- 
ined it  with  care. 

How  straight  and  graceful  and  exquisite  it 
was  !  When  it  swung  to  and  fro  with  the  summer 
wind,  in  the  twilight,  it  seemed  to  Antoine  as  if 
little  Anglice  were  standing  there  in  the  garden. 

The  days  stole  by,  and  Antoine  tended  the 
fragile  shoot,  wondering  what  manner  of  blossom 
it  would  unfold,  white,  or  scarlet,  or  golden. 
One  Sunday,  a  stranger,  with  a  bronzed,  weather- 
beaten  face  like  a  sailor's,  leaned  over  the  garden 
rail,  and  said  to  him,  "  What  a  fine  young  date- 
palm  you  have  there,  sir ! " 


242 


PERE    ANTOINE  S    DATE-PALM. 


"  Mon  Dieu  1 "  cried  Pere  Antoine,  "  and  is  it 
a  palm?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  returned  the  man.  "  I  didn't 
reckon  the  tree  would  flourish  in  this  latitude." 

"  Ah,  mon  Dieu  !  "  was  all  the  priest  could 
say  aloud ;  but  he  murmured  to  himself,  "  C'est 
le  bon  Dieu  qui  m'  a  donne  cela." 

If  Pere  Antoine  loved  the  tree  before,  he  wor^ 
shipped  it  now.  He  watered  it,  and  nurtured  it, 
and  could  have  clasped  it  in  his  arms.  Here 
were  Emile  and  Anglice  and  the  child,  all  in 
one  ! 

The  years  glided  away,  and  the  date-palm  and 
the  priest  grew  together,  —  only  one  became  vig- 
orous and  the  other  feeble.  Pere  Antoine  had 
long  passed  the  meridian  of  life.  The  tree  was 
in  its  youth.  It  no  longer  stood  in  an  isolated 
garden  ;  for  pretentious  brick  and  stucco  houses 
had  clustered  about  Antoine's  cottage.  They 
looked  down  scowling  on  the  humble  thatched 
roof.  The  city  was  edging  up,  trying  to  crowd 
him  off  his  land.  But  he  clung  to  it  like  lichen 
and  refused  to  sell. 

Speculators  piled  gold  on  his  doorsteps,  and  he 
laughed  at  them.      Sometimes  he  was  hungry, 


PERE  antoine's  DATE-P\LM.  243 

and  cold,  and  thinly  clad  ;  but  he  laughed  none 
the  less. 

"  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan !  "  said  the  old 
priest's  smile. 

Pere  Antoine  was  very  old  now,  scarcely  able 
to  walk  ;  but  he  could  sit  under  the  pliant,  ca- 
ressing leaves  of  his  palm,  loving  it  like  an  Arab ; 
and  there  he  sat  till  the  grimmest  of  speculators 
came  to  him.  But  even  in  death  P^re  Antoine 
was  faithful  to  his  trust. 

The  owner  of  that  land  loses  it,  if  he  harm  the 
date-tree. 

And  there  it  stands  in  the  narrow,  dingy 
street,  a  beautiful,  dreamy  stranger,  an  exquisite 
foreign  lady  whose  grace  is  a  joy  to  the  eye,  the 
incense  of  whose  breath  makes  the  air  enamoured. 
May  the  hand  wither  that  touches  her  ungently  ! 

"  Because  it  grew  from  the  heart  of  little  Anr 
g-lice^^^  said  Miss  Blondeau,  tenderly. 


